


Marion's Memoirs

by negative_space



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Female Protagonist, First Person, Identity Issues, LGBTQ Themes, Magic, Magical Realism, Multi, Original Fiction, Original Universe, Other, Psychological Drama, Psychological Fantasy, Recovery, third person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 05:59:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 25
Words: 94,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5486219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/negative_space/pseuds/negative_space
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marianne Brockett wants nothing more than to fit in.  As a girl completely unable to use magic, she's locked out of the world of privileges and conveniences that student life at Master Drysdell's Preternatural Arts Comprehensive has to offer.  The clouded world of her home life estranges her further, with only a barbaric stepmother and a cat for solace.  To conceal her anxieties, she turns to an alter-ego and adopts the alternate name Marion, becoming an almost entirely different person, but soon the term "being yourself" takes on an entirely new, dangerous meaning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hindrance

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a big-ass thing i've been working on. this is like, minorly edited but otherwise it's basically the same 1st chapter as the one on my wattpad account. also jesus christ i had no idea it was this long. apologies in advance to everyone whom i've forced- er, persuaded to read
> 
> other chapters soon to follow, probably-maybe

Marianne Brockett had failed the test.

Not that she was surprised. Not that this was the first time. Nobody ever skimped on the opportunity to tell her how stupid she was. So why did she still feel upset?

In a perverse way, it was like she had succeeded at failing. Zero out of a hundred. The whole entire syllabus, and she'd spent so many hours revising it, too- where had it all gone so horribly wrong? Marianne didn't know how many hours she'd had to spend in that awful dimly-lit library, poring over textbooks until her eyes watered and her spine felt like it was going to collapse in on itself. Zero. The red-ink ellipse Professor Lovejoy had inscribed felt like a black hole, one that sucked away time and optimism.

Marianne didn't want to believe Professor Lovejoy was the villain here. Professor Lovejoy was actually the nicest person at school. Marianne was no stranger to flunking tests, and it was the same with all the other teachers with all the other classes. But Professor Lovejoy never screamed and she never belittled. She didn't bat an eyelash as she'd handed the paper back. She was just there, sweeping around the classroom in her favourite pink gown, mouth the most neutral of warm smiles. She was arguably the teacher that smiled the most, although Marianne was never certain of what this counted for.

She knew Professor Lovejoy was a patient, understanding lady. Those qualities were unique at this school.

Immediately Marianne remembered the reaction she'd dread the most- Emily-Rose Frey, self-appointed head prefect. Other students liked to exact their non-specific hatred of Marianne through beatings and hecklings; Emily-Rose preferred to contort the entire power structure of the school to get at one simple girl who irritated her. How long would it before she heard of this? Zero out of one hundred. It was just a fraction, but it made you vulnerable to her. You weren't just an idiot- no. You purposefully wasted the time of teachers, you took up space in one of the most prestigious schools around, you _just wouldn't drum it into your empty blonde head that education is a thing people like to take seriously, would you, Brockett?_

Emily-Rose had a cousin in the school. In fact, she had a cousin in this very classroom, a couple of rows from the back who, no doubt, had one hundred out of one hundred. His name was Pierre, Pierre Snowling, and he wasn't much better, if only for how suspicious he was. Pierre was smart, certainly, kind, with a number of nice traits that endeared him to the girls and some of the boys. He wasn't abrasive, he was soft-spoken, docile in his manners of speech, and gentle in all other aspects. Pierre liked questions. _Why, Marianne? How can you, Marianne? Why won't you talk to me, Marianne? What have I done, Marianne?_

In hindsight Pierre and his interrogation should have been the least of her worries, as a teenager and a student. It seemed to be an issue completely separate from the main issue that caused so much trouble.

Master Drysdell's Preternatural Arts Comprehensive was an enviable school to attend. It promised to make master mages of children and teenagers, make them respectable. Feared, even.

Marianne Brockett was the only girl in the school for which that objective was completely impossible.

It was Professor Lovejoy's favourite line around testing season, and over the years received many remixes- _“it's alright, dear, I know how hard you work”_. Marianne did. She worked hard. But for whatever inner fire in her that the others all had it wasn't enough. No magic was in her. She was told- by Professor Lovejoy, again- that this was due to _“extraneous circumstances”_ , and not that she was stupid or anything. Now she couldn't even have confidence in the last part. It was taught that magic didn't always rely on your intelligence but other factors- happiness, passion, love, things that looked good in storybooks. More than anything, you'd have to really value something, something you'd die for, if you wanted to realise the spark in you. The spark that could cook food without touching it or restore perfectly a shattered vase.

Rumour went round that Marianne didn't know magic because she had nothing she valued. Many rumours circulated about Marianne, but it was this one she could have thought to be true. Even your most prosaic of people loved something, be it a person or object. Most of the first-years got away with simply the love of their mother and father, and could continue their magic studies with glee.

Marianne had neither of those things. She didn't know where they went. She didn't know about the rest of her family save for the one outstanding stepmother who resented the ugly, useless slip of a girl she'd been lumbered with. This stepmother, known only as Cassiopia and absolutely nothing affectionate, was responsible for ensuring Marianne didn't have anything material she could care about, either. There was Molly, pet cat- but what could that have done? Cats couldn't speak to you. Cats tell you they love you by placing a mangled rat corpse at your feet; a sentiment that Marianne found difficult to appreciate fully. Marianne loved Molly, but she was practically more rat than cat at this point, such was how underfed she was. She couldn't help but feel as though she'd dragged her down for this hellish ride, like she was slowly killing an animal. Marianne loved Molly, but she couldn't die for her. Molly was practically dying for Marianne, being the only emotional support figure she had.

Something pink and floral flushed in front of Marianne all of a sudden, with an enthusiastic squeal.

Marianne had friends. But they were not emotional support figures. They didn't even like the real thing.

“Marion!” exclaimed Juniper Carroll, daughter of the local seamstress. “What did you get on the test? I got seventy per cent! I'm so happy!”

Marianne couldn't remember how or why it started. In this place she was not Marianne. She was Marion. Marion was not Marianne. Marion still lacked inner fire but certainly had outer fire. Marion loved adventure and swearing and getting into fights. Marianne didn't- but what choice did she have?

“Haha, yeah, funny you should say that,” said Marianne, covering the bold red contradiction in the corner of the paper. “So did I!”

“Cool!” Juniper beamed, delicate lips a v-like shape of name-brand generalised happiness.

Just like that, the conversation died in between her pale interlocked fingers, and she flounced away back to Theodore Goldstein, the other friend-but-not-friend. They both sat on the other side of the room, which Marianne knew was no coincidence. Theodore was an odd boy, and Juniper was clearly desperate for friends if nothing else, but even they didn't want to be seen near her.

The bell for the evening rang, piercing through the chatter of everybody else, and shaking Marianne out of the trance of melancholy she had only just managed to re-establish upon Juniper's departure. “You may all pack your bags, my dears. You've done wonderfully, so take this evening to relax!” Professor Lovejoy called across the room, her sweet voice somehow remaining on top above the clatters of chairs behind desks. “Now, Pierre, Marianne- could I just have a minute to speak to you both?”

There it was. Proof, if nothing else, that some kind of god of misfortune had it out for Marianne that evening. The remainders of the class wasted no time in leaving the room, emptying out like the final dregs of a drink down the drain. They left crushingly awkward silence in their wake.

“What is it, Professor?” Pierre asked, and he stepped forwards so that he was beside Marianne. Already this triggered a nerve, and a slow pain started to crawl down her spine.

Summer days were long, but today had gone so quickly- the sun was already setting, casting pinks and oranges into the room. Professor Lovejoy caught the majority of the light on her expertly made-up face and soft, romantic curls of blonde; people had always said it was strange how such a beautiful woman decided on becoming a teacher. They also said it was strange that a woman like her decorated and dressed the way she did- the evening's light found the knick-knacks scattered on her desk, too, vases of blush-roses and doilies and old books from at least a century ago. The room felt heady and intimately pink, and Professor Lovejoy gazed at Marianne with benediction.

“Marianne, sweetheart.” Not answering questions directly had always been a thing of the teacher's. “You're rather pale. Is everything alright?”

“Professor-” Marianne found herself stumbling over her words, as she knew the answer should have been obvious. But that gentle gaze unnerved her. “I... Professor Lovejoy, I've never failed a test this badly.” She pointed to the paper on the desk, trying not to touch it again. “It's- I just- I don't know! I don't know what to do! I tried my best, and...”

“That's all you needed to do, my darling,” Professor Lovejoy nodded, smiling sweetly. “Your work ethic rivals the best of us.”

“Then why did I do so awfully?” Marianne nigh-exploded, shock waves rattling her arms and legs. “I- I- I didn't get anything right! Everything we've studied, I've been doing wrong! Not to mention, I still can't use magic, and- why do I even still go here?!”

Professor Lovejoy paused for a moment just then. It could have been shock, or she could have just been thinking of her response- it was often difficult to tell. Marianne felt Pierre besides her as well, reacting albeit silently. “And that is where you're more mistaken than anything else,” she answered pointedly, shaking her head. “Maybe you struggle with the practical and theoretical work that we teach you. Master Drysdell is constantly on my case about this, in fact, but I refuse to give up on you, sweetheart. You're forced into an extremely compromising situation- but your philosophy and approach to your schoolwork is immaculate. In fact, hard workers and determined achievers like you were who this school was designed for in the first place.”

“I'm no achiever,” Marianne muttered. “Achieving means good grades.”

“And that's the next step in your journey,” Professor Lovejoy answered, refusing to miss a beat. “Pierre, my love, this is where I was thinking you could help. Both of you work extremely hard at what you do. You did wonderfully on the test, Pierre, and I was thinking you could possibly help Marianne with her studies. You know... teach her how to apply all of that drive and hard-earned knowledge into exam techniques. Things such as that.” For whatever reason, she winked.

“I'd love to, Professor,” Pierre replied, his usual brand of serenity and sincerity. Marianne didn't know how- it always unleashed a wave of disgust. Pierre didn't even seem like a real person half the time. He had the kindest, softest blue eyes, and even though he belonged to one of the richest families in the village always looked slightly unkempt, as his expensive clothes hung off his slender frame sack-like, and he refused to get a haircut for fear of the local barber, letting it fall around his head in a multitude of umber curls. How did somebody like him even manage to exist?

“That's wonderful of you, Pierre,” Professor Lovejoy beamed. Somehow, even though the conversation was entirely about her, Marianne lost focus. “There'll be rewards in store. I appreciate your giving up time for this. Well, anyway- I'm off to get dinner. Have a good evening, both of you.” With that, Professor Lovejoy put some things into a briefcase, and she left the room with nothing but another of her smiles.

“Well,” Pierre began, after half a minute's floundering silence, “the library should be quiet at this time. It'd be ideal to go down now.”

Marianne stared at him in a mixture of belief and discomfort. “Wait- we're starting today?”

He deflected her expression with a swift diversion of his own gaze, looking away. “Yes. That's what I got told.” Already, he started to walk out of the room, leaving Marianne helpless to follow.

“You didn't- Professor Lovejoy didn't mention anything about today!” she cried. “Don't tell me you two have been having conversations in secret or something-”

Orphaned by the sudden distance she had to cover to keep up, the conversation only continued when both students were buried some distance in the labyrinthine arrangement of tall shelves that made up the library of Drysdell's. The place was headier still than Professor Lovejoy's classroom, smelling not of roses but of dust, mothballs and the somewhat acrid air of old books. It easily invoked migraines within the suffering student. The surroundings were a warm blur of mahogany, making the gaze Pierre had trained on Marianne at this point much more unnerving.

“I didn't want to talk to you about exams today,” came the eventual reply. “There's... something else I was concerned about, actually.”

If the misfortune god had it out for her before, now it was beating Marianne over the head with a cymbal, crowing gleefully at her pain. “What?” None of Marion's strength was here with her today. The fire in her voice had dropped like a pebble from a cliff.

“You're different today,” Pierre noted quietly, face overcast. “and I think I know why. After that test you were vulnerable. Because you couldn't pretend to be a different person.”

Marianne wondered if it was a thing magic-users could do- punch someone in the face with their words. It certainly felt like it. “What?”

“Is it not true, though?” Pierre's lips were soft, but managed to deliver unmistakably harsh words. He never seemed to raise his voice above a certain volume, but right now his threat level was similar to Cassiopia's. “Marion's not your real name. Marion's not your real personality. I heard you lie to Juniper. Why do this to yourself? You set yourself up for nothing but pain.”

“And why should that,” Marianne began to answer, hiding trembling hands behind her back, “be any of your business?”

Pierre stood, leaning an elbow on a nearby desk. “You haven't answered my question.”

“W-well...” Trying to answer felt like trying to spit out a lump of liquorice; a tenacious one that clung to your teeth and left its bitter taste under your tongue. “You wouldn't understand.”

“Of course not. I'll never understand while you're busy being so mysterious.” There was another thing about Pierre that bothered Marianne. While, yes, he unmistakably identified as male, he had a number of effeminate traits. His voice, in particular, was dreamlike and quiet, and Marianne sometimes misconstrued it as a girl's voice until it seemed like her own thoughts were bouncing back at her. “How can you expect anything to change while you're so closed-off, Marianne? Nobody will hurt you if you speak out.”

“Yeah?” Marianne suddenly felt something burn behind her eyes. “You mean nobody would hurt _you_  if you spoke out.”

Now Pierre was the one to recoil. “I... what are you saying?”

“You can use magic,” Marianne suddenly found herself spitting, words coming out rapid-fire, “you're pretty and all the girls and some of the boys love you, and you've got a throng of personal admirers. Your family's rich and you never, ever have to worry if you'll have something good to eat every night. People can look past your weaknesses! You don't have to pretend you're strong! The idea seems ridiculous to you, doesn't it? Well?”

“Marianne-” Pierre froze all of a sudden, hand suspended. “I'm-”

“You're what?” she snapped back.

“If you yell at me, nothing will change,” he muttered somewhat sullenly. “You know that.”

“Maybe things are fine as they are,” Marianne retorted, her tone feeling as bitter as the taste in her mouth.

“But they're not, so stop pretending.” He looked up. “You're failing your tests. The other students gang up on you. And the people who call themselves your friends didn't even wait for you as you left. Things are not 'fine' for you, Marianne. Maybe I'm privileged, but I'm not stupid. After all, the walls in the dormitory building are thin, you know. I'm the one who hears you cry at night.” The boy took a couple of steps closer, face still eclipsed, offering his hand. “Stop this, Marianne. Let me help you.” The sincerity was back. So was the serenity. And so was the nerve that always arose.

“No,” Marianne made sure to articulate, clear as day. “Mind your own business. It shouldn't bother you.” She started with retracing a couple of steps backward, until she retraced many steps, and then turned around to flee the scene. She retreated from the walls of the bookshelves and ran towards the heavy doors. With all her might she swung them open, and then the doorway swallowed Marianne whole.

Pierre remained standing in place, staring in a bad kind of awe. What was he to do now? Had he just perpetuated the kind of self-destruction that he had literally just tried to put an end to? Probably, yes.

Marion was Marianne Brockett's suit of armour. To people who didn't know her as well, it was indistinguishable from the real thing. But Pierre knew- and he'd noticed the glaring dent in it. The dent exposed all of the insecurity and all of the suppressed anger, and provided the need for the armour in the first place. The worrying part was how the anger would end up manifesting.

Sadness was something not that tolerated in Drysdell's, or in Greenbough Village in general, if you were Marianne. It made you weaker than you were already. Doing things like crying- absolutely out of the question.

Marianne didn't want to scare the first-years as she stormed down the corridors away from the library, trying to silence the newly-awakened _'he's got a point, you know'_ monologue in her head with her own footfalls, but she wanted to be left vulnerable even less. She knew Pierre was right. In fact, he had been stating the complete obvious. It was just unlike anything Marianne had heard in a while, mostly because it was a Drysdell's student who spoke the truth.

Truth- the idea irritated Marianne. She knew what truth was. The truth was that when your stepmother hated your guts and enjoyed slapping you around, she wouldn't still be nice and feed you. The truth was that when you couldn't go home, you had to lurk in the village, and this would be far from safe or pleasant. Marianne encountered truth on a daily basis, and she hated it. And Pierre had no idea, did he? Trying to dismantle the last web of lies she had to protect herself... for what?

And why?

Marianne left school the minute she found a door to the outside. Technically, signing out was required- but the fence was easier to jump over and less bureaucratic. She ignored the cut on her knee this gave her and started to walk intently, not really sure where she was going. Nobody was out at this time. But it didn't matter. Marianne had her own company.

The evening summer sky was soft and warm; final wisps of clouds floated above like smudges of pink sherbet. The light of the day was beginning to die, and Greenbough would go to sleep soon. Though it was too uncoordinated and out of the way to fit the geographical criteria, Marianne reckoned this village was the worst type of suburbia. Everything was okay and everything was idyllic, and everyone loved each other like a big family. Unless you were the ratty girl in the striped tights who messed everything up by not being like everyone else. That was probably why nobody normal, nobody nice lived here- they saw sense.

It was a surprise nobody had presented her with a bell and told her to ring it as she began to walk through the village green. As Marianne walked through, people began to sneer or suddenly look very heavily ensconced in their own business. Eye contact was not a thing that was made. She ignored them. She ignored the buildings, too; she ignored Juniper's house and the tailor's window, filled with all the pretty clothes she could never have. She ignored the odd concrete block-like building where it was rumoured Theodore lived. She ignored all the shops she'd stolen from in the past, and ignored the local tavern with the disgusting drunks that lurked outside and heckled.

Soon the list of things to dismiss grew thinner and thinner, as the cobblestone paving grew more sparse and more and more blades of grass grew between. She left the shadows that the buildings cast, and entered the new uncomfortable orange light of early summer. Nobody really knew what to do with this corner of the village; it was insofar unbuilt on. But the grass was dutifully trimmed short and there was still the odd wildflower here and there. Possibly because this was near the local cemetery. The local cemetery managed simultaneously to be austere yet loving and accepting. It was a graveyard above all, and dead people were sleeping underground there- but the people of the village respected the deceased, and there was rarely a gravestone to be found that didn't have a bouquet or gift nestled next to it. There was one person who really respected the dead- Pierre. If he wasn't at school, he was here. Usually alone. That was what made Marianne feel more bitter than anything today- why would he need to hide away? Everybody loved him.

Suddenly she felt her heart sink in her chest, and decided to keep walking and stop thinking. She crossed past the gates of the village cemetery, sentinel and caring though gnarled and rusty. Instead, she found the gates that presented her destination- they were completely sincere in their austerity. Flanked by statues in concrete, these opened the way to the Gilder Estate. The only real point of the Gilder Estate was to separate the rich, who'd only come down in order to get a Drysdell's education, from everybody else who lived here. It worked.

Nobody was out this evening; clearly, this hour marked high tea, or cake ceremony, or something like that. Marianne was alone as she walked through the polished brick road, past grand villas and lavish cottages.

Right at the back where the path died was a mansion that looked on the verge of keeling over, or being consumed whole by ivy. Or both. This was Marianne's house, and Cassiopia's home. The exterior was nothing short of mildly intimidating. The walls looked to be in need of another coat of whitewash, and none of the windows offered a view inside. The front door was prefaced with a peculiar door-knocker in the shape of a twisted snake, and it glared at Marianne as she looked for her keys. Its glare seemed to intensify as Marianne realised she hadn't even gone to get them in the first place.

“Well, shit,” she muttered, patting imaginary pockets that were in no way on any area of her clothing. “Now what do I-”

She was interrupted by a quiet meow, and something furry nuzzling itself against the boots she wore. Instantly she recognised it- the somewhat-mangled ginger tabby she called her pet.

“Hello, Molly,” Marianne murmured, leaning down to scratch the cat behind her ears. “I missed you. What have you been up to?”

Molly placed two rusty screws next to Marianne's foot. “That's nice,” said the human, trying to disguise mild disdain. “You can't eat those, Molly. You know I can't afford to get that removed from your stomach. Oh... you're probably hungry, aren't you?” Marianne sighed. “Me too. I can't get in the house. I'm sorry, baby, it might have to be wild mushrooms and berries for dinner again like Friday. Maybe we can hunt down a nice rat you can crunch on?”

Somehow Molly didn't seem remotely affected by this sentiment. She usually didn't anyway, as she was a cat and didn't understand any kind of human language, but instead she simply looked back at Marianne somewhat expectantly.

“What?” Marianne asked. “What is it?” She really hoped that this cat wasn't about to make her look like an idiot. A piece of paper had already done that earlier today.

With no further explanation, Molly simply walked away from the door and around the corner of the house. “Where are you going?” Marianne threw the question hopelessly into the air, and sighed. “Ugh. Textbook cat behaviour, that is.” She followed the feline around the corner, not sure what she was expecting to see. Usually it would be some kind of awful mangled corpse pileup, normally small birds, but occasionally the odd rodent found its way in there. However, the side of the house was free from dead things today.

Instead, resting on the grass was an air vent cover. There was a gaping hole in the wall that, presumably, it had been separated from, and Molly sat next to it with an almost smug expression. “Oh my god,” Marianne groaned, “did you do that?”

Again, Molly didn't answer. “You're such a stupid cat,” Marianne sighed. “Well- not stupid, I guess, because other people's cats probably can't take vent covers off walls, but- how? I suppose it doesn't matter. We need to put that thing back on. What are the odds that some odd opportunistic bunch of kids are going to see it and try and- ah.” She paused, her eyes beckoning to the darkness behind the gap. Her gaze lingered there and she began to reconsider. “I've changed my mind. You're a very clever cat indeed...”

Something on Molly's face seemed to soften. She moved aside, and Marianne clambered through the square darkness. She expected to be hit with a blast of cold air, but only found the stench of rotting flesh.

“This is gross,” she muttered, “where the hell is this?” She came out the other side and found herself in a room lined with meat. None of it looked edible, either. All kinds of meat, red and white, although their original colours had been lost to the unity of decay, and now everything was a pallid purplish hue flecked with green. Marianne noticed a switch on the wall, labelled “FREEZER”- turned off.

“I didn't know we had a...” Marianne panned her mind for the right choice of words, and came up blank. “A, uh, big meat room. I should probably know my own house a lot better.”

She heard the padding of the cat's feet behind her as the animal jumped up on a shelf. “I guess Cassiopia didn't know either. Look, it's all rotten. Surprised it's not fossilised by now, heh.”

Molly meowed sharply, drawing Marianne's attention. She was sat by a wrapped flank of something. The paper it was enrobed in hardly did anything to protect it, as it was damp with grease and more mold. “I know you're hungry, but please don't eat that,” she said quietly. “It'll straight-up kill you.”

With the single bat of a paw, the wrapped meat was knocked onto the floor. Marianne shook her head, gripping her hair in exasperation. “Molly- you've got to stop knocking stuff off shelves! You know Cassiopia hates it, and I can't afford to have her mad at you, because we both know what she'd- ah.”

Something was wrapped around the chunk of meat on a leather strap. It was metallic and rather key-shaped. Incredibly key-shaped, actually. Marianne took the key from the strap, not caring about the disgusting slab of meat she'd just touched, and found a door next to the freezer switch with a keyhole. She put the key in, turned it- _clunk_. She'd managed to be correct about something today.

The door opened out into someplace wholly less mysterious. The kitchen of the Brockett household was seldom used properly, as Cassiopia made clear she would never stoop to menial housewife duties if it killed her. Usually Marianne would have to come up with creative concoctions using what merciful supply there was if she wanted a square meal, but as this tended to involve running into the aforementioned stepmother and earning either a verbal or physical beating, she never really bothered. Mostly she used the kitchen in the interest of the other cupboard that was in there.

Marianne considered her life one of squalor, but Cassiopia was far from poor, naturally- she lived in the Gilder Estate, after all. Grubbing from Marianne's father's bank account for all she had, Cassiopia lived the life of a rich lady, and had the wine collection to go with it. She never usually missed one from the back of the liquor cabinet, though, and thrills like that were the only reason Marianne came home most of the time.

The girl's eyes stayed trained on that cupboard door this evening. It had been a rough day. She'd been put through the works and back not only by the curriculum but also by Pierre, and it would be best if she could take her mind off it. Besides- drinking was nice. You couldn't think too hard, and everything looked warm and hazy. You never had any trouble passing out, either. Of course, Marianne never told anyone about this. The rumours were bad enough as they were without a drinking problem to fan the flames. The local authorities would be jumping over one another to accuse her of misconduct and throw her in jail for another night.

As such, the wine cabinet remained under lock and key in Marianne's head. She couldn't wait to toss today's incidents in the same vault, either. Her hands lingered by the door-handle.

She turned around, and looked at the dinner-plate eyes that stared her in the face from the animal on the ground. She decided now was not the time.

After ransacking cupboards and larders, Marianne eventually found something that probably wouldn't kill a cat if eaten, and soon some broccoli was sitting in Molly's food bowl. Cats were carnivores, yes, but given the meat supply she'd been fronted with, Marianne knew which food group she'd rather have her cat eat from right now.

“I think I have an idea, baby,” Marianne murmured quietly. “You listening?” She only heard chewing. “Okay, well- I don't belong here, right? I don't belong anywhere in this village. Can't go anywhere without someone glaring daggers at me. School's a goddamn joke, and home- who am I kidding, this isn't our home, right?” She slapped a hand on the countertop, laughing bitterly. “It's time to leave, Molly. There are better places for us to be. In fact, we could leave right now if we just took some money. And we all know who's got money, don't we?”

At this acknowledgement, Molly turned around from her plate. However, she did not move. Her blue eyes were wide, their pupils tiny slits.

“It won't be so bad,” she whispered, “really. I can find a job. In other towns people won't know me. Maybe I can count on them to be nice if I come up with a sob story. Then I can wash dishes, make beds, scrub floors... something. We might even get a nice place to sleep and substantial stuff to eat. Anything's better than here, right?” Molly still didn't move as Marianne walked over and picked her up. “I know you think it sounds scary, but there's no way in hell I'm leaving you here,” she crooned into a pointy ear. “You're my only friend, after all. Come on. Let's get something to start us off.”

Eventually, Marianne realised she had learned something new about Cassiopia today. The woman was damn good at hiding money.

She'd taken a step into a dragon's den. However, the dragon itself wasn't in there, and was probably in the lounge or something. She'd never been in Cassiopia's bedroom before anyway, but she could recognise the eerieness that her absence from it presented. Above all, there were things- so many things. Barely any colour, either- inoffensive neutrals, colours of gold, silver, champagne. It was beginning to get dark, too. Marianne didn't dare open any curtains. There was a row of mannequins posed in front of the window that put her off from the idea. Obviously they weren't there for any purpose other than showcasing dresses. Obviously. But their milky sclerae perpetually stared ahead, and it felt like they knew you were there. Marianne didn't know why Cassiopia enjoyed bridal clothing so much. All of those mannequins wore meringue dresses, corsets taut around plastic frames and frothy petticoats spilling onto the expensive rug. Cassiopia herself usually wore this kind of thing around the house. Marianne's father wasn't even around anymore. His money was, though, and that was probably where all this stuff came from. She knew stealing from Cassiopia was essentially stealing from him- but did she really care by now?

To be safe, Marianne didn't say a word, and held Molly tight against her to prevent an escape, despite her protests. This room was impossible. For all the money Cassiopia liked to use, none of it was here. There was no shortage of storage- jewellery boxes, vanities, cabinets, hatboxes and wardrobes- but there was no physical money to be found in any of it. Evidently, Cassiopia had premeditated this sort of thing. And Marianne didn't have much of a choice. She'd have to smuggle something physical out of the house and sell it if she wanted any sort of money to subsist on.

 _Now_ , she thought, darting her eyes around the room, _what's she got enough of? What won't she miss?_

Makeup- who'd want used lipstick? That was a no. Dresses- a naked mannequin in the middle of the room, despite being a welcome humorous element, would be incredibly conspicuous. A painting- no, those were the only things in the room with any colour at all. Jewellery- there was a whole complicated trade about jewellery, it'd be easy to get scammed, she'd need something where its value was obvious...

She found a headdress sitting on the severed bust of a mannequin. It was another bridal one- or was it? Definitely valuable. It glittered despite limited light, and multiple gems of many different colours studded it. A bold, black gem prefaced it, sitting proudly in the centre. Marianne extended a hand to it, and it fell off.

Molly almost escaped from her hold in the ensuing shock. Marianne had learned the hard way enough times as a child to know- you did not break Cassiopia's things. It just was not a thing you did if you wanted to live. It took all of the strength and optimism in her to suppress the immediate thought which surfaced- _this is probably how I die_. There was another thing that held off the thought: what the gem left in its wake. There was an indentation in the crown with a tiny switch in it. A blink would have obscured it, but after the gem fell Marianne wasn't about to let her guard down for a second.

Perhaps out of stupidity, perhaps out of bravery, or perhaps out of futility- Marianne pressed the switch.

There was a soft 'thump' beside her, and an oil painting fell from the wall. Marianne took the oil painting with shaking fingers, and attempted to find the space where it had been hung up. No hooks to be seen. Molly lingered around her feet nervously as she sighed- magic again. Most things in this house were magic. With one final press, she tried to get the oil painting back on the wall before she really had to resign to her death.

Then the wall gave in.

There was no brickwork to be found where the wallpaper had disintegrated; instead, a line of bare floorboards pointed forwards into a thick darkness. Marianne followed it, and found herself in a very new room.

Clearly, if a house Marianne had lived in her whole life had fallen victim to Cassiopia's nouveau-riche bastardisation of it, her own bedroom had survived. So had this little room. Marianne even swore there were a couple of spiderwebs where she stepped. There were other things in here whose existences were unthinkable in other areas of the house- namely, books. Lots of books on shelves. There was an assortment of titles: _Acquiring Darkest Morality, Torture Charms, Hexes of the Mind_ and _Assuming Control_ all stuck out the most.

Somehow these didn't look like blockbuster romance novels.

There was a desk here, too. A pen still sat languidly in the inkwell, caked in shimmering black. A piece of paper sat before it, almost fresh.

It was a half-penned letter.

_"With regards, Master._

_I have removed the significant obstacles from your path. I write to you in the utmost of optimism, as I believe the time for the Reaping is nigh._

_Ezekiel and Marianne are no longer issues to us. Ezekiel has moved far away, I believe onto a dock somewhere. He's a shell of a man. In fact, if you tried, you could probably snap his spine in half. Marianne is tenacious and irritating as usual, but she still can't use magic. In fact, she's the pariah of the whole village. She's completely useless as she is, and if she continues to be useless we can probably use the capture units to pummel her to death. I would like to formally request to be the one who carries that out. She has most besmirched my otherwise ideal house with her filthy existence, and I would delight in it, Master._

_As I write no doubt our spy is out collecting information. I haven't been notified of any hitches in her own plan to blend in, so we can safely assume that we can begin the reaping tomorrow morning. Underwood will know all of the entrances to the school, and has been told to track down suspicious persons. After which, the plan to reap can be adapted as she tells Luc”_

The words stopped abruptly. So did Marianne's breath, for a second, as she began to hear noise.

The rapid thumping of high heels up a stairway, flanked by whisperings of organza skirts.

 "It's her.” Marianne's heart felt as though it had been speared right through with a whaling arm, and her voice began to deflate accordingly. "Cassiopia's here, Molly."

In the last of the movements she had the valor to make, Marianne took the letter and shoved it at Molly, who took it in her mouth. “Find my dad,” she hissed, “wherever he is, and give him this. She can't catch you. You're too quick.”

Molly darted out of the room in a blur of orange, goodbye-less. Within seconds the shrieks began to ring up- _“damned ratbag, I should skin you with my bare hands! And- what the-”_

Marianne stood there, her heart making tender meat of her insides. In the last blessed moments of solitude she had, she briefly wondered what she would have done if she knew her lifespan was going to be only fifteen years long; probably tried to enjoy herself a lot more.

A furious Cassiopia was at the doorway before any further attempts at calming down could have been made.

"You,” she snarled, voice scraping its way from her throat. “You filthy pest. Human vermin. I- you- do you understand the fate you've just made for yourself, you dirty little cheat? You read that letter, didn't you?”

Marianne couldn't answer.

“Like I couldn't hear you from downstairs, messing around in here,” she spat, “bumbling around like some massive oaf. You'd think a rat's diet would make you a little lighter!” She flicked away a speck of dust with a hand gloved in white silk, and Marianne winced.

"Your insults don't matter anymore,” her voice arose, “that letter's never going to get delivered.” The taste of a big mistake made itself apparent as soon as the words fell from her tongue.

Cassiopia just smirked. “What, the first draft, before I switched to better paper? It's already been delivered, you feckless idiot.” She gave a spitting cackle of glee. “Goodness, how awful this must be for you. You must have thought you achieved something, for once in your miserable life!”

“I know what a reaping is,” Marianne stammered, “you've got plans, I know that, some kind of raid is going to happen! I won't let you!”

Cassiopia laughed harder still. “Oh? Go on, continue to yell your empty words at me. I haven't heard anything so hilariously futile in a long time.” She took grand strides into the annexe, her dress big enough to the point it filled up the room. “Even if someone so pathetic as you took action against us, pray tell, what could you do? You wouldn't even make a good meatshield.”

“Connections!” Marianne blurted out. “There are powerful mages in this village, y'know- I- they- Professor Lovejoy! She could turn you into mincemeat if she wanted, if you tried crossing her-” For some reason, tears reached her eyes now.

 This time Cassiopia didn't laugh. She paused in faint disgust. “I knew I never should have let them take you to that school,” she hissed. “You've not been as strong as you're meant to.”

Marianne looked up. “What's that supposed to mean?”

Cassiopia glowered back down, green eyes alight with an almost ophidian intensity. “I wasn't talking to you.”

Before Marianne could so much as blink, a sharp spike hit her in the abdomen, heralded by the layers of silk and taffeta that made up the skirt of Cassiopia's dress. The woman kicked and kicked again until Marianne had no choice but to fall to the floor, bringing some of the contents of the bookcase with her. She could only formulate somewhat strangulated gasps, crying for the air that had been knocked out of her lungs. A particularly heavy tome landed on her and sent her spine into surrender as well, until all Marianne could see was floorboards and more white fabric. She saw the stars, too, all the constellations she'd never been taught, and with every new light that flourished in the night sky between each plank of wood, her head grew heavier.

Suddenly the white fabric left her view. It returned, heralding the almightiest of sharp pain. There was a loud crash that seemed to meet Marianne's neck first, cutting into flesh. Shards of ceramic began to tumble down, followed by the dripping of dirty water, and a dull thumping. Lilies, of all things, decorated the scene, and they were covered in blood. A vase. Huh.

It was the last thing she saw before her vision left her too. That face, that face, painted wine-coloured lips forming incantations and spitting them out- all she could make out. The stars were brighter than ever before, exploding into a heavenly supernova. Before long, Marianne's knowledge of what was going on on Earth was sucked away, as though through a vacuum.

Fate was merciful enough to let her black out completely after a while.


	2. Her Memoirs

 

"Lost her, did you?  Don't be an idiot, Pierre.  We wouldn't know where she is.  Why would we?"

“Y-yeah, Theodore’s right... you took her to the library, didn't you? We thought she was there. Sorry...”

“It's alright,” Pierre muttered, turning away from Theodore and Juniper. “Don't worry about it.”

But he wouldn't be so lucky. 

The guilt and self-resent was beginning to settle in. More than settle in- it was eating him whole. The burden of being responsible for such a level of upset had fallen on his shoulders without the plan to leave. How on earth did everything end up coming out so... sharply? How had he managed to turn a concerned inquiry into an interrogation? 

He sighed innately. Marianne had vanished now, and nobody knew where she was. Not even the reception desk. By all accounts, she was still in the building, but the physical evidence suggested otherwise.

There was just one last place he hadn't looked.

The corridors were empty, and he found his way to the classroom in relative silence. He rapped his hand gently against the window, waiting for acknowledgement from the woman inside. Upon receiving a nod, he entered.

The classroom was shrouded in partial darkness; the lamps were lowered to a dim orange haze. The classrooms were just as much a part of the building as any other, but were never really acknowledged at night. Every desk was empty except for Professor Lovejoy's at the front, whose owner was packing various papers into a floral briefcase. There was a woven pink shawl tossed around her shoulders, and her feet were pointed towards the door in that manner evocative of a woman about to leave.

"Pierre,” she smiled. “It's rather late, dear. Did you need anything?”

“She's not in here,” he thought aloud, his face falling.

“Who isn't in here?” Professor Lovejoy asked, face only budging by half a centimetre. “Looking for someone?”

“Oh, Professor Lovejoy,” Pierre murmured, voice cracking, “Marianne's gone. I was too forward, and she got angry and left, and I haven't been able to find her anywhere- nobody knows where she's gone and it's all my fault, and-”

The teacher cut him off with only a deep sigh, setting a hand on her desk. “Sweetheart, I'm sure Marianne's not  _gone_ . It's unlike her to just simply... vanish.”

“It is, though.” He looked up at Professor Lovejoy, eyes both withering and pleading.

She thought briefly, and put another stack of papers into the briefcase. “Hmm. You do have a point.” She traced a satin finger over the name that prefaced the next paper in chicken-scratch handwriting:  _Marion Brockett_ . “Still- don't fret, sweetheart. What's done is done, and you'll just have to apologise when you see her again.”

“I have a bad feeling about it, Professor,” Pierre muttered. “I mean, I don't... I've never seen her get like that. If she's not in the building, then-”

“Pierre.” She placed reassuring pink-gloved hands on gradually-slacking shoulders. “It's been a long day, and you've been pushing yourself especially hard lately. I had an errand by the docks anyway, so I'll check by Marianne's house while I'm out. You should go to bed now, dear.”

His hand remained suspended in further protest, but eventually faltered, as did the rest of him. “Yes, Professor.” The steps he made to follow her out of the room were meagre and half-hearted.

Eventually teacher and student went their separate ways down the corridor, and Professor Lovejoy continued alone. 

The light had dissipated a while ago, and the corridors were dark now. The view out of the windows yielded only a white-speckled blackness. Most of the students and teachers had gone to bed by now, and the reception clerks had gone too, leaving only a sheet to be signed. Professor Lovejoy didn't need to change her facial expression from the maudlin half-smile half-grimace she upheld. With the amount of makeup on her face, it had already settled into a sort of mask.

She worried. She did. Every little patch of trouble Marianne Brockett got herself into struck fear into her heart, and this incident was no different. It did seem strange, though. It didn't feel the same as the florist's window, or the tripped alarm, or even the tavern brawl. Usually if Marianne was to vanish for one evening, some rumour of her appearance doing something unlawful cropped up by this time. 

But the village as Professor Lovejoy walked through it was just as silent as the corridors of Drysdell's, and free of angry mobs. Hypothetically, tonight was the perfect night for stargazing, but she couldn't have cared less about that right now.

Suddenly she lurched, nearly losing balance. Something darted past and jumped behind a flowerpot.

A ginger tabby, somewhat bedraggled and clutching something between its teeth, stared at Professor Lovejoy with eyes that glowed in the lamplight reflecting off them. It should have made some kind of noise of acknowledgement, but didn't.

She ignored it, and continued.

The cemetery gates and the Gilder Estate gates had always seemed so close together. One set creaked and the other didn't. There was virtually no noise as Professor Lovejoy entered, with only a faint clash as they fell back behind her.

If the main village was devoid of noise, this area was in the negative levels. No children. No music or chatter from open windows. Even straining an ear for the click of an insect's legs yielded nothing. The houses at least seemed to show some kind of life as she walked past, as maybe windows were lit, or the silhouette of a servant would pass by for a second. But none of those houses were Marianne's. The numbers on the doors and the postboxes and the signposts didn't match the printed one on the girl's student record.

The one that did showed no such signs of life. It wasn't dead so much as reanimated; evocative of several nightmarish fumbled necromancy experiments Professor Lovejoy had had to help stave off in her time. The majority of the building had been consumed by ivy that stretched its gnarled wooden fingers across further and further, pulling it into the darkness. The windows were square black gaps reaching into nothing, save for one amidst the crawling plants that was faintly illuminated behind closed curtains. 

She could see everything, though, about why Marianne Brockett was Marianne Brockett. The scrubby, somewhat-ratty looking girl who'd worn the same outfit ever since she began school with a new bruise every week- what other way was there to be when you grew up in this kind of loveless hovel? It was a wonder she hadn't heard of a campaign to bulldoze the building out of the Gilder Estate yet.

She wouldn't have fancied being the one to head it, herself, under the watchful eye of the twisted serpent prefacing the door. The door-knocker was unbearably cold to the touch, even despite the gloves Professor Lovejoy wore that day. She softly knocked against it, removing her hand almost immediately afterwards.

For a minute, it was as if she'd never knocked in the first place. There was no immediate response to be heard, and she prepared herself to step away from the door and leave at the risk of seriously disappointing Pierre. Then there was a sudden heavy  _thump_ coming from within the building that made Professor Lovejoy change her mind. The curtains in the illuminated room stirred slightly in the corner of her eye, calling to attention a series of wine-coloured stains splattered over them- then the other thumps started. A drumming rhythm of sharp beats, kicks and echoes ensued, rattling up and down in pitch- high heels running down a staircase.

The door flew open before Professor Lovejoy could even prepare a reaction. It was a similar experience to opening a drawer and having a severed arm jump out and sucker-punch you. After the initial shock wore off, she found that she was staring directly into darkly-lined green eyes on a furious face, partially clouded by a bridal veil.

“ _Whaddyouwant?!”_ was one of the things this strange white-clad lady barked, amongst other various half-formed shouts and yells.

“Good evening, ma'am.” Having to retain composure even in the face of brazen impoliteness wasn't a thing Professor Lovejoy enjoyed doing, but she did it anyway. “Would you happen to be the parent or guardian of Miss Marianne Brockett?”

The woman withdrew slightly, narrowing her eyes and tucking a platinum-blonde curl of hair behind her ear. “G-guardian,” she practically spat, as though the word would burn her tongue. “What's it to you?”

“I'm one of her teachers at school,” she beamed. “As you most likely know, we at Master Drysdell's Preternatural Arts Comprehensive take utmost pride in ensuring the health and safety of those under our care. It's come as quite a shock to us to discover that your Marianne has been absent without leave for quite some time tonight. She wouldn't happen to be at home with you, would she?”

The woman paused all of a sudden, and her eyes flitted back. In the space between question and answer, she folded her also-gloved hands in front of her, and it was then that Professor Lovejoy noticed it- her fingers and palms were caked all over in a mixture of blood and earth.

“She forgot her books,” came the eventual, extremely drawn-out answer, although she paid no attention. “And then, er, she got this awful headache! Yes, you know, when a migraine hits you and you just have to lie down... it happens to the best of us, doesn't it?” A laugh forced its way out of the woman not in a dissimilar way to a black widow spider forcing its way out of a clogged drainpipe. “So, um... don't worry, er, Mrs Teacher. She'll be back at school tomorrow with all her books and no headache. Yes, definitely.”

“Just Professor Lovejoy is fine,” she smiled, although it was getting increasingly difficult not to let it fall back into a grimace. “I do like your outfit today, by the way, Mrs Brockett. I've never seen a colour combination quite like it.”

“Colour? White isn't a colour, it's a-” It was venom presented in a floral teacup, and the lady had only just started to react. She panned her eyes down to her gloves, and they slowly began to fill up with dread. “Ah! Ahhhh! Ah- er- oh, silly me! Goodness, I get ahead of myself when I'm gardening sometimes! Do excuse me, I normally remember to change my gloves... pesky things, aren't they? Gloves! All this dirt! Why, I never...”

“Like you said, it happens to the best of us,” Professor Lovejoy smiled. “I completely empathise. I just hate when I'm out gardening on a dark night and the petunias bleed all over me. I detest those new varieties, don't you?” She began to step backwards, retaining the gentle beaming expression. “I'll be taking my leave now. Goodnight, Mrs Brockett. Do be careful in the garden, now, won't you? It can really... ruin an image.”

She walked away to a background soundtrack of a slamming door and muffled curses. 

Something inside her felt lofty after having completely dismantled her, but the spot of worry from before had managed to mutate into a huge unsightly dark cloud over Professor Lovejoy's heart. Something serious had very likely happened to her student; something worse than a migraine. What would she tell Pierre? What would she tell Marianne's father? What was she going to tell herself tonight as she attempted sleep?

Although she had walked far away enough now to fall out of earshot of the woman's yelling, the silence had gone. Something else was padding about in the shadows on soft feet. 

The cat from earlier jumped out in front of Professor Lovejoy. It still held something between its teeth- a rolled-up piece of paper, it seemed. Its eyes were wide, unblinking, staring unrelentingly.

“Alright, sweetheart,” she murmured, crouching down to cup the animal's face gently. “Tell me what it is that you know.”

  
  


  
  


The next morning found Marianne in an inexplicable heap of arms and legs on her bedroom floor, arranged in such a way that if some art students had arrived to draw her form, they'd have immediately screamed in frustration and thrown their pencils to the ground. She felt like screaming, too- mostly out of confusion.

“How the hell,” she began, not bothering to finish. A huge strain was making its way across her head in clusters, bringing with it pain and a dull, thick throbbing like a bassline. The first three words fell out of her mouth, and the rest were stopped in their tracks by the damper this pain had put on her ability to think of rhetorical questions.

She looked for her feet- haphazardly splayed across the rug and, for some reason, still wearing shoes. She looked for her hands- one resting itself against the dresser she'd found herself at the foot of, clenched tightly into a fist. The other was laid down on the floor, unfurled from the fist it may have made before. She checked for her arms and legs- still there, connecting the runaway hands and feet to the rest of her. Marianne was still intact, albeit just barely.

“Christ,” she muttered, “how much did I even drink?”

This question was easy to think of, because it was not rhetorical. She would have loved to know how much she drank- what, as well. She couldn't imagine such a substance that left you in a pile of numb arms and legs with spinning vision and a shaky head. She also couldn't imagine Cassiopia wanting it in the liquor cabinet. Perhaps she'd grabbed a bottle of cough syrup and swigged that instead; a bottle from before the days of organic ingredients, a most delightful concoction of only the most powerful sedatives. Marianne didn't know if Cassiopia ever even needed cough syrup. But for now it was the best explanation.

There was a light shining in through the window, and the shadows cast in the room were weak, bruise-blue instead of black. Some faint birdsong trilled from outside, too. It was a morning, no doubt. But Marianne knew them too well- bright, industrious, calm. Weekend mornings were never like that. Of course. It was Tuesday. And as much as she'd have liked to avoid it, school loomed over her today.

Social convention dictated that it was acceptable to change your clothes every morning, so Marianne did that in the most liberal application of the term possible. She changed out of her clothes from yesterday: a navy-blue vest over a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up; a skirt of the same colour possessing a dubious length; striped blue-black and white stockings with their perfect bars interrupted by gaping holes into flesh every now and again; boots. Thus she changed into the clothes that would be today's outfit : a navy-blue vest over a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up; a skirt of the same colour possessing a dubious length; striped blue-black and white stockings with their perfect bars interrupted by gaping holes into flesh every now and again; boots.

When you lacked any different outfits, mornings got repetitive rather easily.

The journey to school was lonely, only marred by an odd bowl at Marianne's feet that begged for her attention in the kitchen. It seemed to contain the remnants of a stalk of broccoli. She only half-laughed, as she hadn't yet dropped to the low, low status in this household whereupon she had to eat from a bowl on the floor. Perhaps this was Cassiopia's passive-aggressive way of invitation. Even so the metaphor was an odd one to construct, considering most family pets were loved in some form.

She continued the day almost as normal. The day was quiet, except for the times she got yelled at- five separate intervals from five different teachers. Juniper wittered on about sewing patterns and Theodore made some snide remarks. And Pierre gazed, glassy-eyed, full of apprehension and a mild sense of fear. So she ignored him. 

She found herself back in Professor Lovejoy's classroom at the end of the day. Some notice.

A large, conspicuous woman-shape blocked the gilded light from the windows when she entered, casting the same long and stretched-out shape on the floor below. Marianne toed the edge of a pin-curl, full of apprehension. “Professor?”

“Marianne. Dear.” Professor Lovejoy seemed tentative to turn around and make eye contact, as if the usual vista of nothing but trees was the most interesting thing in the world. “I called you here so we could discuss your re-sit.”

“Re-sit?” Marianne echoed, reaching for the hacked-off hair that was obligatory to fiddle with when one was about to have a confusing conversation that didn't make any sense. “For what?”

“The test, dear.”

“What test?”

Professor Lovejoy's head made its boldest turn yet, to the profile: half of her face received the bathing of the late-afternoon light, and the other half joined the shadows. “Never mind.”

“Oh.” Marianne let go of her hair. “Okay.”

“There's something other I need to talk to you about. Marianne.” Before she could even lift her foot off the ground, Professor Lovejoy was around fully. She did not blink. “Wait there.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Professor Lovejoy swept across the room to a cupboard, from which she produced a rather large leatherbound book. She faced Marianne, pushing the book forward to arms un-outstretched.

“For you, dear.” Now was the ideal time for a warm, maternal smile, though it wasn't there. “Take it.”

“Um. Okay.” Marianne was starting to wonder if her brain knew any different words. “Professor? This is a book.”

“Yes, dear.”

“Yeah. Er, what's it for?” It was rather heavy, and she began to struggle to hold it. She expected the smell of an old book- acidic yet somehow sweet and soft, notes of vanilla- but it smelt of nothing. “I mean, is this a textbook, or what?”

“No.” The teacher's mouth seemed to move the bare minimum required to formulate her words. “You write in it.”

“Okay...” Marianne's eyes panned down; it didn't look like the sort of thing you'd want to write in. “What do I write in it?” The conversation was beginning to feel like a lesson in a nursery school as opposed to a student-teacher meeting in one of the most prestigious magic schools in the country.

Professor Lovejoy took a deep breath. The tight knot between her shoulders finally started to unravel, and she folded her arms in front of her, looking down with a peculiar sense of austerity- one that, admittedly, didn't look out of place on such an ornately-dressed lady, but didn't make sense to anyone who had known the woman for more than ten minutes. “Write down memories in there, Marianne,” she said, almost instructing. “Everything. What happens. What people say to you. Find a pen, and write it all in there. Or just write in it daily, if you want to.”

“A diary.” The words fell out of Marianne's mouth. “But- why?”

Professor Lovejoy took another deep breath, re-adjusting her shoulders. She went back, turning away once more. “No reason. That book was just taking up space in my cupboard. But you should use it.”

“Oh.” The weight was bordering oppressive in her arms now that its existence had truly been rendered as junk. “Alright.”

A pregnant pause passed, and with extreme deliberation Professor Lovejoy reached into the cupboard again, bringing out a pocket watch and opening it out on its two hemispheres. “Well, well.” Something changed; the roselike glow jumped back onto her face. “I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'd love to stay and chat some more, but I'm late for a meeting with Master Drysdell. Never allows me any time, that man.” She gave an expertly-controlled sigh, her arms drifting to her sides. The watch rolled from her velvet hand onto the floor. “I'll see you tomorrow, Marianne, dear. Get a good night's rest, and eat well. And perhaps, if you feel a headache coming on- drink some water, maybe?” Her usual smile returned, cloying-sweet. She swept over to the door. “Goodbye.”

She left. 

"Your watch,” Marianne pointed out, entirely too late, “you dropped it.”

It held a glint of importance, so she rescued it from the ground. Golden, impossible to decipher, probably an antique- why didn't Professor Lovejoy take more care of her things? This was worth a whole week's stay in a good, well-furnished inn.

Marianne abandoned the classroom, yelling after the escaping silhouette of the lady. “Professor!” she cried. “This watch, you dropped it, um- what do you want me to do with it? Professor?”

No response.

“Professor?” Louder. Still no response.

Marianne broke into a light run down the corridor, attempting to catch up to the shape that remained the same size. “Professor! It's expensive, Professor!”

The woman turned, but not the one-hundred-and-eighty degree amount she had been hoping for. She turned around to a large oaken set of doors, knocked, and was accepted in before she ever acknowledged her at all.

“You're acting so weird,” Marianne murmured, resting against the wall in a dodgy fight for equilibrium between a heavy book and an expensive watch. She inhaled, and exhaled. Her head already felt rather light today. It was something to be blamed on the musty aroma of an old book.

The corridor was thankfully empty. She remained, unsure of where else to go from here. Did she go back to dorms as usual- or did she address the curious squeak which sounded from around the corner?

The squeak did not belong to a mouse. It belonged to a nice leather shoe, which in turn belonged to Pierre Snowling. Marianne cast a unanimous vote for the first option, though now the right to choose wasn't so readily available.

“Marianne.” Pierre stopped in his tracks, and his insofar aimless meander down an empty hallway started to look like a manhunt. “There you are.”

“God, it's you.” Marianne was unsure of whether she said it aloud or not.

“Are you busy?” he asked, not waiting for a response. “You see, I... I feel awful.”

“Fantastic.” Marianne decided that she, too, would not emote today.

Pierre looked up, and the one eye visible amongst the muss of coffee-brown hair dominating his face flitted back and forth briefly. “About yesterday.” He coughed. “I didn't mean to say- to say those sorts of things, the things I did, and- how do I put this?” He diverted a straying curl from his face and looked skyward. “I know you don't exactly call the two of us friends, or anything like that, but- can things please go back to normal between us? I don't hate you, and I don't want you to hate me, Marianne.”

She squinted at him. “Yet you don't get my name right?”

Pierre would have looked less shocked had a group of first-years marched through declaring their intent to seize the means of production and cause an upheaval of society. “What?”

Marianne sighed deeply. “It's Marion, you div. I keep telling you.” She broke away from the wall, sauntering over to the other side of the doors. “I don't get why everyone is being so weird today. I mean, you- I'm  used to you being weird and talking about things that don't make sense. This is nothing new. But Professor Lovejoy, too. And my name.” She cast her eyes downward, choosing to conveniently blank the taller boy from her vision.

“You always say things like this,” he muttered, “and it never hurts any less.” 

The shoe squeaked once more as he turned around and left, making ignorance much easier. Marianne stayed.

A conversation close to the door started to become more apparent. Master Drysdell usually had some kind of charm in place on the doors to retain the sound, though as the sound filtered through the keyhole it was evident he hadn't become headmaster over his mastery of architecture. 

“ _Calliope. Calliope! Think, I implore you. You need to stay here and teach. And you're not remotely up to this sort of task.”_

“ _Then who is?”_ Seemingly, Professor Lovejoy wasn't sparing Master Drysdell any motherly warmth today either.

“ _Well- I don't know- in the capital! They'll have the higher magic circles onto this, and it won't be a problem. This, of course, is assuming it is even a problem in the first place! Trusting a note you receive from some... mangy cat is quite unlike you, Calliope. Much unlike your past efficiency.”_

“ _Drysdell. You be quiet.”_ The drop of a penny could have been a building collapsing for the silence that had just fallen. _“For the headmaster of a school, you pay no attention to who is in it, do you? Pierre Snowling, Emily-Rose Frey- are you aware of who they are, Drysdell? Why they are here? Or do you just want to sit back in your chair and smoke a cigar, merely pretending you preside over a ticking time-bomb?”_

“ _Calliope! You'll stop, and-”_ Apparently Drysdell felt the same lurch in his stomach that Marianne did. _“-and you'll address me as Master Drysdell. It's the correct way.”_

“ _Certainly, Master Drysdell. Now, would you answer my questions, please, Master Drysdell?”_

“ _Ah. Er. You see, Calliope, it's not that I will not acknowledge them, but rather...”_

The conversation started to move even closer, and Marianne made another decision not to be held accountable for eavesdropping on the headmaster's business. She acted on it in the best way she saw possible.

“ _BROCKETT!”_ A piercing screech. “Think sprinting in the corridors is a good idea, do you?” Something new- or rather, painfully familiar- had sprung out of nowhere to stop her in her tracks. “Take so much as a step and you'll get a week of punishment.”

“Oh. Emily-Rose.” She stopped, glowering. The atmosphere created was of a stand-off at dawn. “You love your punishments, don't you? God forbid you ever get elected into government. We'd all be executed by Thursday.”

Emily-Rose scrunched up her nose, eyes narrowing, and then returned her face to normal. Her green blazer crumpled angrily at the elbows. “This is an unusually petty indiscretion for you,” she spat, “considering you really should have been put in your place by now, Brockett. Speaking of which- shouldn't you have learned magic by now? Awfully bold of you, I think, to behave so recklessly when there's no place for you here.”

“You'll stop at nothing to get me out of here, I know,” Marianne said, and gave a light yawn.

“Exactly,” she hissed, glaring from underneath her fringe. “If I could get you expelled just for running in the corridors, my job would be much easier. But I'll catch you one day. I know the sort of thing you get up to- all of your blatantly anti-social behaviour, the vandalism, the refusal to conform- and once I have the proof, you won't last a minute longer. Then someone more deserving can take your place here and you'll join the rest of society's reprobates.”

“Thrilling,” said Marianne. “Can't wait.”

“You must think you're so clever,” Emily-Rose went on, “with your terrible attitude and answering back, but the truth is that nobody likes you, and _nobody_ will feel bad for you if you leave.” She paused. “Well, not counting my cousin- but he can do better than you, anyway. You've got nothing to prove to anyone. So wipe the smirk off your face.”

Marianne did not wipe the smirk from her face, mostly because there wasn't one. “These little speeches of yours- you come up with a new insult every time. They take time and effort, right?” Emily-Rose glowered at her. “I'm sure, legally, you should be getting paid for them. I mean, not that you don't have enough money anyway, but you know- fairness. Equity. You _love_ that.”

“You're tedious, Brockett,” she remarked.

“Glad that's settled,” Marianne smiled. In her arms, she began to summon all of the disrespect for authority she had. “Move out of the way, would you? I'd love to chat, but as it happens, this reprobate has an agenda.” She shoved Emily-Rose out of the way at the closest thing she could muster to full-force, and left.

  
  


Juniper was sitting alone on the bed in the unlit dormitory when Marianne entered, staring without intention at a half-finished stuffed toy in her hand. Various pieces of fluff, ribbon and thread collected around her feet, and the spool of thread was somewhere to be found over the other side of the room. The girl's face was colourless and her hazel eyes were like wooden buttons.

“Juniper!” Marianne cried out. “I found out some shit today, and you will not  _believe._ ”

“Okay,” said Juniper, more quietly. “What did you find out?”

Marianne jumped onto the bed besides Juniper, crossing over her legs. “Well. Didn't you notice Professor Lovejoy was being weird today?”

“No,” said Juniper.

“She was,” Marianne retorted. “You really need to be more observant about these things, Juniper. Anyway. So she calls me back and asks me about this test, right? Actually, screw it, I can't be bothered to tell the whole story. Basically, I caught her having an argument with Drysdell. And she thinks the school is a time-bomb.”

Juniper turned her head. She frowned. “What?”

“Metaphorically speaking, of course,” Marianne cut her off, “obviously, I didn't mean an actual time-bomb. Taking things literally can get you in big trouble, Juniper, so don't. Well, anyhow, I think Professor Lovejoy is planning to leave. I mean, I think she is. Drysdell was telling her to stay and teach. So I'm guessing that means she's going to leave, because Drysdell has that huge crush on her and wouldn't want her to.” She scoffed. “You should have been there, seriously. Professor Lovejoy got  _so_ snappy with him.”

“Isn't there some kind of rule against listening in on private meetings?” Juniper asked. “And how do you know if he has a crush on her?”

“Actually, there's not,” said Marianne, “and perhaps you'd know if you had my intuitions, Juney, dear. But never mind. The point is, Professor Lovejoy is probably leaving tomorrow.”

“It's sad that she'd leave,” murmured Juniper, “but I don't think she'd do it tomorrow.”

“Would too,” Marianne insisted. “She even gave me the book because she was clearing out her cupboards.”

“What book?”

“The one I'm holding, Juniper.”

“Oh.”

A silence passed for a couple of minutes. Juniper picked up her needle again.

“It's rude to ignore someone when they haven't finished talking, Juniper.”

“Oh.” She put the needle down. “Sorry. What were you going to say?”

“I was going to make a proposal,” said Marianne, reclining. “You see, Drysdell was saying Professor Lovejoy wasn't up to the task- whatever the task was. I reckon he's right, you know.”

“So...” Juniper cast a longing eye back towards her sewing. “Are we going to try and talk her out of going, too?”

“Ha!” Marianne brought her fist down onto the duvet, producing a soft thump. “You're quiet, Juniper, but you say some damn hilarious things sometimes, I'll give it to you. Of course not. We go out there and we give her backup.”

“We don't know where she's going,” Juniper pointed out, “or even what she's doing, Marion. We can't leave.”

Marianne sighed. “This isn't a 'we', Juniper. I'm including you in this out of kindness, and I'm going out anyway. I did think it'd be nice to take someone along with me- who gets my name right, for starters- but okay. Stay behind, do the Geomancy essay, keep Theodore company instead of me- what do I care?” She shrugged, and stood up.

Juniper stood up too. “When are you going?”

“Well. Now, I suppose.”

“You'll need clothes,” Juniper said. “You know. When you pack.”

“That's how packing works, yes.” Marianne stretched out, and yawned.

“In my mum's shop,” Juniper murmured, “there's always a pile of designs she doesn't like and doesn't sell. You could take them. Y-you're going away, right? I'm sure she won't mind.”

“Oh, really?” Marianne raised an eyebrow. “I'll stop over there on my way out.”

“No!” Juniper cried. “I'll bring them with me. I'll come out too.”

“Changed your mind, did you?” She gave a toothy smirk. “Good choice. Knew Geomancy couldn't win you over for long.”

  
  


“Interesting stuff, this.” Theodore reclined against the door-frame of the boys' dormitory, bearing a similar expression. “I was waiting for something to happen. It's been far too quiet for my liking lately. Pierre, are you hearing this?”

His addressee failed to bat an eyelash, turning the page of his book in the corner of the room. “Don't you find it rather telling that you have to take enjoyment in other people's conversations instead of your own, Theodore?”

Theodore scoffed, flipping blonde hair. “Well, you're hardly the pinnacle of entertainment, Pierre. What am I supposed to wring out of someone who only ever reads books? I mean, look at you. Your girlfriend is planning a wild excursion out into the big, dangerous world for a completely unknown cause, dragging Juniper with her, and that's not even enough to make you move from your seat.”

There was no reply, though Pierre's eye glared as it scanned the words.

“By your girlfriend, I mean Marion, see. This is something known to more apt conversationalists as a 'joke', you know, and you could-”

“Ah, yes. A joke, Theodore.” The eye briefly darted above the page to focus its glare on him instead. “Because everybody's simply besides themselves with laughter, aren't they?” Pierre buried himself further within the reinforcements of long hair and a jutting-out shirt collar. “She's not my girlfriend. And that's not her name.”

Theodore tutted, adjusting his glasses so that they perched slyly on the bridge of his nose. “No? You've been dishing out a lot of sarcasm lately. Just like your favourite person. Maybe she transmits it mouth-to-mouth? Not unlike other things she-”

A thrown bookmark dislodged the glasses within a matter of seconds, sending them to the floor.

“Crass, Pierre. Very crass! I'm shocked. You're usually so delicate.”

“And you're always irritating,” Pierre muttered, “so be thankful I'm not in the mood to use magic.”

The taller boy sighed, settling himself down on his bed. “Alright. You're having a moment, I understand. I'll just stay completely silent and wait out the whole evening.”

More silence.

A deep breath. “I'll wait out the _whoooole_ evening, Pierre. Whilst the girls do as they please. That's a thing they're doing.”

Nobody reacted.

“It's so sad,” he sighed again, “how you're not even going to say goodbye. That little lovers' tiff really did a number on your sincerity, huh?”

Pierre's eyebrow made a slight twitch at its corner, but otherwise made no other acknowledgement.

“She could be gone forever!” Theodore cried, though the corners of his mouth curving upwards ruined the melodrama slightly. “She can't defend herself, you know.” He made a dramatic gesture upwards with his hand, as though reciting poetry. “The scrubby blonde fledgling has flown the nest of safety before her time... and inevitably, will fall and die. Or get skewered. Or fall into a trap she can't escape from. Or someone will grab her with big, meaty fists and grill themselves some fledgling à la carte.”

Around the front and back cover of the book, Pierre's hands began to quiver.

“It's not just a metaphor, you know,” Theodore added airily, “I doubt Marion's intelligent enough to avoid stumbling into a cannibal colony. And Juniper will be collateral damage. There's a very big market for nubile teenage girls in the cannibal world, you know- heavens!” Theodore clutched his hands to his chest. “I've even got myself concerned. Oh, dear Marion. She'll be missed dearly. If she's lucky.”

There was a snap that sent a shiver across the furniture, and Pierre stood up. He placed the book _'Beasts of the River'_ -side-up down on the nightstand, and took a protective cloth away from something on the wall, all without words. On a belt around his chest he fastened the holstered sword to his back, and headed towards the door.

“Typical of you to find the idea of caring about someone so obscene,” he muttered, at last, “I don't think I expected anything higher from you. How about you stay in your comfort zone for the evening and dissect a frog or something rather than intervene in a matter you don't understand?”

Theodore's eyes were aglitter, noticing the opportunity to crow something smug, but was only offered the most brief of opportunities before Pierre left and closed the door behind him.

“And her name's not Marion.”

 

 


	3. Bridge

Do you know something? I think I could get used to this.

I'd doubted Professor Lovejoy when she gave me that book. I mean, don't I do enough work? Why do I need to write a dissertation on my life, too? But you know- I actually kind of like this. This is the sort of thing people need to know about, I think. I like how my handwriting feels, too. It's like carving the words in with ink, and they don't come out. This was just a pen I found in the corridor. It's someone else's and it has a name engraved on it, but that means nothing, does it? I took it, so it's mine now.

So at present, I'm preparing to go out. I had a plan (sort of) for the whole thing. I was going to meet Juniper back at the dorm once I'd got everything. "Everything" was food. Did I need anything else? Probably not. So once I did that I'd get her and then we'd climb out of the window of the dorm. Between the dorm building and the big wall around the school there's only a small stretch of grass, so then we'd climb over the wall and be out of school. I think after that it's just forest for a while until you come to the next towns. So we'd go and do all of that. That was my plan. The rest was up to destiny.

A weaker person would maybe feel sentimental, walking through Greenbough Village for the last time. But I wouldn't miss this place. It was just some insular rural shithive full of rich people who never did anything but doubt me. For a while after my plan there was the big gap where I'd let fate have its fun, yes, but I had plans for after that too. Maybe having Juniper around would be a drawback in this regard, but I didn't plan on returning here. No. The rest of the world had more room for me.

Isn't it just mind-boggling how you can walk through an entire village full of people in just five minutes? It is for me. Mind-bogglingly dull. I was already at the cemetery feeling a deep sense of infuriation. It was like it was taunting me. Like, _hey, Marion, you're trapped inside a boring, pathetic prison._ For good measure I gave the gates a nice hearty kick before I set off for the Galder Estate. (Is that how you spell it?)

I think I might have dislodged something because I heard a lot of creaking for a while afterwards, but I didn't really care. I'd done worse things to the florist's window and got off. Well, got off with two week's community service, but that was nothing. Really.

I expected to walk through undisturbed, because rich people usually did demi-luncheon or petit-dejeuner or high tea ceremony by now and so stayed in their cozy little giant houses. However, I ended up bumping into someone. That's not like a leading sentence; "someone" wasn't anyone I recognised.

"Sorry!" they said, giving me a smile full of gaps in their teeth. It was a short, blonde-haired boy who looked a million miles away from puberty. "Wasn't lookin' where I was goin'. Nice house you got, miss."

He darted around me and ran away.

"I'm not a _miss_ , you condescending fuck!" I called back, waving my fist. I watched after him, wondering whether to chase after him- despite carrying something big and glassy that looked like an entire window taken out, he was pretty quick. "And- wait a minute-"

It had just occurred to me that it was probably my house he stole the window from.

I let him run. Kid was clever.

Sure enough, round the back of the house, there was a giant gap into a side-room where a window had been ripped out. Like, literally, there was just this huge black space there. It was kind of impressive, actually. I decided to take advantage of the situation and enter the house by leaping through. Incidentally, this was fucking awesome. Leaping through a window was cool enough on its own, but leaping through a former window was even cooler.

So I went in and I got some food. I didn't pay much attention to this part, I just took what was in the cupboards. It was difficult to carry all of it, so I took one of Cassiopia's fancy handbags and out I was. And I walked back to school and yadda yadda and god this part is so boring, it's not significant enough for me to write down. And wait a minute oh no it better not goddamnit no wait good my pen isn't running out of ink after all. Good. I didn't know how much was in this thing.

And I went back to school and got a couple of weird looks because of the handbag but again I don't think I really cared. In particular I got a weird look from Theodore, but I think that might just be his normal facial expression.

"Well, well." He joined me in the east wing despite me literally making no sort of eye contact or whatever signalling for him to come along. "Out shopping, Marion?"

"What? Yeah, you know what I mean," I said, gesturing to the handbag. "Go into the shop, get the stuff, that kind of thing. Shopping, yeah."

"It seems a bit highbrow for your tastes," said Theodore, whose accent was the most highbrow thing I'd ever listened to.

"Well, Theo," I said, "sometimes you just have to go out and treat yourself to a handbag, you know? No matter what your tastes are, it hits you at some point that your life would be better if you had something made out of crocodile skin to hold all of your stuff." I was trying to get him off my back, in case you couldn't tell.

"I get that a lot," he said, looking at the ceiling. "Particular cravings that hit you at a time. Relentless, they are."

"Yeah." You know when someone goes 'yeah' and then the conversation drops off? This is what I was doing here.

"I think Pierre does too," he gloated, "especially right now. I think he's rather upset, Marion."

"Is he?" It occurred to me that once I left I'd never have to deal with him ever again either, and I felt the nicest feeling inside me, like sunshine and warm blood. No more Pierre. Why did I always have such great ideas?

“You didn't know?” God, why did he leer like that? Did he think he was being smooth or something? “Wow. News doesn't reach you very quickly, does it? Soon you'll have to invest in a hologram transmitter for anyone to be able to get to you.”

“Yeah.”

The rest of this conversation was too boring to write down because it was mostly just Theodore not realising that he was an irritating person. I think we walked past Emily-Rose who bitched about my skirt length, but that was too boring to write down as well.

“So, Marion,” he said when he got to the door of his dorm room, “are you going to spend the rest of your evening doing anything interesting?”

I nearly said “yeah” but then realised my mistake and said “no”.

“We could always spend some quality time, you know.” He raised his eyebrows at me, and I wanted to punch them off his face.

“Can't,” I said. “Studying. You know how it is. Read the book, learn the stuff... right?”

“Right, right. Of course. I know completely.” He smirked again. “Well, if you need a break, you know where to find me.” And he went off inside his dorm to dissect a rat or whatever.

So I went into my dorm and found Juniper in there holding another bag.

“I couldn't find much,” she mumbled, “and, you know, it's only a small local business my mum has, she can't afford to lose anything- what I did do, though, I sewed some new clothes with my magic, so we should have about three outfits each- I don't know your measurements, though, I had to guess a bit. You should probably try them on.”

I yawned. “Why don't we also use your magic to create a matching hat and underwear, and then take a train to the Capital where we'll have our seasonal summer fashion show?”

She scrunched up her nose a bit. “Eh?”

I sighed. “Juniper, what I am trying to say is that we don't have the _time_ to do these things. Professor Lovejoy could be already out by now.”

“But you don't know that,” she frowned. “Neither do I. We've got no way of-”

“I will tell you what I _do_ know,” I cut her off before she could say anything else stupid, “and that is how to exit this building the way we need.” I pointed to the window.

“Marion, please!”

“Please what? Look, I know it's not exactly in your skill-set, but you're going to have to learn these things. Here, I'll give you a hand.” I opened the window, took Juniper, and threw her out of it. It was probably lucky for her we were on the ground floor of the dorm building.

“Ow,” she said.

“Suck it up,” I told her. “You're going to have much tougher things to face than that window in life. Like this giant wall in front of us, for example.”

The big wall in front of us that protected the school was just that: big. It was very big, actually. I was actually sort of doubting whether climbing over it was actually possible.

"Now, uh, you're the shorter one, so if I just give you a leg up over the top, and then you pull me over with you, we should be able to land on the other side," I said.

"In one piece?" she asked, removing her face from the grass to eye the wall nervously.

"Let's be optimistic here, Juniper."

So we carried out my plan. I wasn't used to lifting up humans, so Juniper was a lot heavier than she seemed. I also had to stare straight forward and not up to avoid getting an eyeful, if you get my drift, and when she pulled me over the wall I didn't even realise and had no time to brace myself. And I fell in a heap on the floor.

“Wow!” said Juniper. “That was quite easy, actually.”

“Oh, fuck off,” I muttered, spitting out a twig. “Have we still got everything? Food, clothes?”

"Yeah,” said Juniper. “I caught them.”

“Well, there's no reason to be loitering around this stupid wall,” I said. “We've got to go through the forest next.”

“I remember walking through the forest when I was little,” Juniper murmured. “I remember I met all sorts of little creatures. Fairies, too, ones who liked nice children. I used to make daisy chains with them.”

I snorted. “Fairies? Just how old are you, Juniper?” All of a sudden I felt an almighty lurch on my nose, and sneezed violently. “Bleh. What was that? Whatever. No time to waste.”

There's really not much that's interesting about the forest we had to walk through, so I won't go into detail about all the trees and twigs and stuff. I've never liked forests that much. I can't deal with the weird little shriek sounds that come out of nowhere. I always come out covered in weird sorta-glittery dust, too.

It annoyed me even more when the forest thinned out into a footpath and we left, and I was the only one covered in glitter dust. Juniper was dustless. She was also looking at a sign.

“So a river spirit dwells ahead,” she said. “We shouldn't anger it.”

“For the love of god, Juniper!” I cried. “Fairies, river spirits- what is this, Folktale Hour for Ages Three and Up? Those things don't exist. Never have done.”

She twitched. “Well- yes, they do, Marion, it's not that silly to think about, you know- we live in a world where you can set things on fire just by staring at it really hard-”

I sighed. I walked past the sign and onto the big wooden bridge that went ahead. There was a little river running quite far beneath. “Look, Juniper. This is a bridge. There are a few things in life that you should really be afraid of, but this... this piece-of-shit wood plank long board structure thing- it's not one of them. Now, do you see any vengeful river spirits around? I sure as hell don't. So let's just get going already before I change my mind about bringing you with me.”

She walked onto the bridge with me, but annoyingly stopped after a couple of steps. “Marion. You do... you do hear those crashing noises, don't you?”

I sighed again. “Rivers make noises, Juniper. It's what they do.”

“None this loud.”

The river noises were pretty loud, but Juniper was also being pretty annoying. “I should think that if you're trying to persuade me fairies exist I should be trying to persuade you that there's a little volume control thing in the river somewhere and a bunch of kelpies are having a dance party tonight. Now come on.”

“Marion!” Juniper exclaimed. I got splashed in the side of the face with some water, which I found very irritating. “Marion, look at all that dust on your clothes- you know where that comes from, right? You should have cleaned it off, Marion-” her eyes were really wide now- “I think you've made it angry- _look behind you!_ ”

“Juniper, for fuck's sake- there's no time to sit around and discuss the origins of dust like we're housewives or something, and-”

I turned around.

There are things you expect to see in rivers, right? Fish. Ducks, perhaps. Dragonflies.

Not, however, a full-sized kraken. Not one with a tentacle already curled around your ankle, either.

It was just today that Mother Nature really decided to shit all over my expectations.

\----

Juniper couldn't tell if this experience was charmingly humble or absolutely terrifying- to watch a girl with an ego the size of a mountain be thrown around like a ragdoll. She stayed, cemented to the shaking bridge; it was the lone strand of common sense that shone through clouds of panic that told her to stay. She didn't need to run, after all. The thing wasn't after her. She wasn't covered from head-to-toe in the blood of the forest's fairies.

Of course, the bridge was jumping up and down and the babbling brook was crashing in waves in an impersonation of great ocean storms. Those were good enough reasons to run.

“Juniper! _Juniper!_ ” Somehow, the screaming voice emerging from the corner of her peripheral vision belonged to a boy and not Marion. “Juniper! What's going on?”

She turned, shaking. “Pierre? Wh... what are you doing here?”

He stopped besides her, rapidly drawing in breaths. She couldn't help but notice the large sword he was carrying, and was unsure of whether to bring it up. “I suppose I'll be blunt,” he sighed, “and admit I followed you two out here when you left, because I thought- well, I thought something like this would probably happen.”

“Oh.” The two waited for a second as another wave of water crashed down, splashing them both in the process. Juniper's face began to grow hot. “The thing... um, the th-th-thing, the river spirit- she made it- it took- Marion's down there.”

“Ah. She is?” His one visible brow furrowed, and his grip tightened around the handle of the sword. “Now, I'm no acrobat, but...”

The bridge hit a violent lurch before Juniper could say anything else. Something smacked down on the floor besides them- another large tentacle, huge, meaty and shimmering black- and it writhed back and forth, reaching for the end of the bridge. Pierre made a run-up, and was gone as quickly as he came.

The bridge was too far above the river to see anything but two dark-blue dots on a continent of giant leathery skin, with the view marred by static-like water spray. The planks beneath Juniper's feet jumped up and down in panic- but showed no signs of seriously dislodging.

“Grand show, this is.” Something began to crawl up inside her and stagnate, like a pit of sludge in her stomach. “It'd be very upsetting if they both died, I think.”

She turned, bones and joints creaking. There was Theodore, leaning casually against the bridge's fence, still with a labcoat on as if he'd just stepped out to watch a coliseum match. “Please, Juniper. Don't act surprised. You know it won't be that easy.” He smiled to himself. “Oh, here they are now, look. How boring.”

Both people involved emerged from the chasm beneath drenched in water and an unusual spattering of blood. The summer air had inexplicably become bone-chilling in temperature, and it was on a final limp tentacle that Pierre climbed back onto the bridge, Marion slung around his shoulders, hair dangling limply in his face like a spider colony. He staggered onto the path, set the body gently down on the ground and coughed for a few seconds. Then he looked up, glowering.

“Theodore. Just what do you think you're doing here?”

“I could ask Juniper and Marion the same question, you know,” the blond replied, casually deflecting the rage directed at him. “I could also ask them why they think it's a good idea to anger huge malevolent river spirits. We learned about them for the test. Under the current sea queen's rule, it's only natural that every body of water is going to have something tyrannical and beastly defending it.” He laughed. “I suppose it's easy for this sort of thing to slip Marion's mind, but I thought Juniper was smarter. Much, much smarter.”

Both girls, conscious and unconscious, made no movements.

“You have no reason to be here,” Pierre muttered. “You're not wanted and you're not necessary. Leave.”

“How sad,” he chuckled, “for you, perhaps. Carrying on with these two idiots on their little road trip with no voice of reason is going to get you violently murdered on your next impulse.”

“Pierre,” Juniper piped up, her hands knitted together, “are you... coming with us?”

His face softened towards her, though not by much. “No, Juniper. You shouldn't have listened to Marion. This was a bad idea. Yes, Professor Lovejoy is leaving, but she's leaving alone. We're supposed to stay at the Comprehensive. It's where we're safe.” He sighed. “I know we can't return like this. We should find somewhere to rest in a town nearby first, and then go back. I'll come with you.”

“Rest?” Theodore chuckled. “Why would I need to rest, Pierre? I'm just in tip-top condition, as you can see. I haven't gone bounding over walls or jumping into rivers.”

“If you rest, perhaps everyone else will catch a break from hearing your voice for a while,” Pierre uttered, “until we go back home and you'll simply blend in with the other arrogant narcissists our school has to offer.”

  
  


I struggled off the ground. I censored that awful goddamn sword from my vision. I was soaking wet, and I was _pissed._

“There's no way in hell we're going back home.”

  
  


 


	4. The Little Matchbox

So we got off the bridge.  There was really, really awkward silence.  I wasn't actually sure what we were doing, but 1999's newest couple seemed to be limping off with confidence, so I had no choice but to follow them or to fall back with Theodore.  Really, this was annoying.  I thought I'd get a bit longer before I had to confine myself to this conformity bullshit again.

“Well, would you look at that.”  Theodore's annoying posh schoolboy voice broke the awkward silence, and I think I know what I preferred.  “I think we're approaching civilisation at last.”

I was confused because this hadn't taken a jab at me, Pierre or Juniper, and that was basically all he was doing before.  It was also correct, because there was a small house somewhere in the distance up the path with lights on.

“Pierre, are you going to be alright?” murmured Juniper the pipsqueak, who had undergone a fatal amount of badass decay from when Pierre joined.  “You really seem exhausted.”

“Yes,” he said, “I'll be fine.”  And then he fainted.

“Oh.”  Juniper was never really that badass in the first place, so now she was more sort of some useless floral addendum.  “Oh, this isn't good.”

Theodore just laughed.

“Welp,” I said, “there we have it.  He can't force us to do anything while he's out cold.  Let's just leave him here and continue on our way.  Theodore, you stay here too.”

“Pierre can fend for himself,” he retorted.  “I don't need to be his bodyguard.”

“I know,” I said, “I just don't want you to come, because you're a drag, just saying.  Come on, Juniper.”

No sooner than I started walking did someone rush towards us.

“Whoa!” they cried.  I could have said the same.  “Is he okay?”

This person was really fucking tall, had spiky brown hair, and was wearing all these fancy punky clothes with metal bits and stuff on them.  Like, a longcoat and a waistcoat and other things ending in -coat, only all covered in things.  Why am I describing him?   It's not as if I cared about what he was wearing, or if I thought the post-apocalyptic warlord look was awesome.

“Our friend fainted,” warbled Juniper, who was probably too stupid to know not to talk to strangers.  This one looked about our age except really fucking tall, but you know.  You get my drift.  Bad idea and also a stupid waste of time.

“That's not good,” muttered the stranger.  He crouched down to look at Pierre, and then when he stood up he stared really hard at me.  “And... wow.”

I stared back.  “What are you looking at?”

“Uh, nothing,” he said.  “It's just, er, you're covered in blood and water.”

“Oh, yeah.”  That.  I'd forgotten about that.

The stranger panned an eye around, swiftly choosing to ignore the smug look on Theodore's face and fixating an eye on Juniper who was trembling like a leaflet in a hurricane.  “No offence, but you guys look really roughed up.  What happened?  Was it the river kraken?”

Theodore sighed.  “Kraken attacks.  Common as muck, they are.  At least they are when you're an idiot.”

“Some girl came by a while ago by this bridge.  She started making all sorts of noise and throwing things into the river.  When the water started to stir, I can only assume she teleported away with some magic thing.  God, she was strange.  All covered in dust, too.”  The stranger shrugged.  “She must have purposely agitated it, and you guys ended up in the crossfire.  Bad luck, huh?  At least you survived.”

“Barely,” Juniper mumbled, staring at Pierre.  

The stranger kept on eyeing us.  Up and down, left and right.  It was really weird.  “Yeah, you do look a bit worse for wear.  It's getting late, too.  You probably won't want to find out what lurks in the forest now the river guardian's been crossed.  My house is up ahead, and I have healing magic, so... you guys can stay the night if you like.”

I actually really wasn't that fussed.  What was a mystical forest spirit going to do- slap me in the face with its non-existence?  

“Please!” Juniper squeaked.  “Um, I mean, yes, please.  That'd be really nice of you... if you'd let us stay, and...”

Theodore tutted and smiled, though I don't think she noticed.

 

So it turns out that the fuckoff-big guy lived in the tiny house that was ahead.  It also turned out his name was Greg, he was our age, and he did actually have healing magic, which was annoying.  I happen to like having battle scars.  Another annoying thing was that his living room was conjoined with the kitchen because the house was so cramped, and there wasn't even enough chairs for all of us once Pierre had taken up the whole of the couch with his lanky unconscious carcass.

Why was it so irritating that Theodore was sitting on the coffee table?  I didn't know, but unfortunately I was too far away to push him off of it.

“So, um.”  Greg was reclining in another chair a bit awkwardly.  “Most people have school today, right?  Why aren't you guys...”

All eyes were suddenly on me.  Well, not Pierre's, obviously.  

“We're backing up our teacher against an unknown force,” I said.  I wanted to spit out a toothpick to look badass or something as I said it.  This was, after all, our directive.

“Uh, right,” said Greg.  “You guys must be from Drysdell's, then.”

Juniper nodded.  Theodore stared at him.  I eyed the roof support beam above him.  It looked enough like a toothpick.  A toothpick support in a matchbox log cabin.

“Where are you from?” Juniper piped up behind Theodore.  “What are you doing, all the way out here?”

“Ehhhh...” Greg scratched the back of his neck with his arm, metal bits jangling.  “It's, uh, kind of a long story.  I won't bore you with the gory details.  But to put it simply, sitting out here and healing people who come by is like a volunteer job I do.  I heal people and in turn I get this roof over my head and these clothes.”

I briefly considered healing as a profession as I envisioned myself in a badass armoured longcoat slaying some fools, but shooed away the idea as I remembered healing is possibly the shittiest profession there is.

“That seems rather suspiciously convenient,” said Theodore.  I don't think he meant for Greg to hear, but he did anyway.

“Heh.  Does a bit, doesn't it?  I thought it sounded odd, too, when I got offered it.”  Greg cast a look over at Pierre, who was no more conscious than he was five minutes ago.  “It was this blonde lady, dressed all nice, who'd heard about me from a newspaper.  She seemed really resolute that I stay here.  Funny.  It's not as if the river guardian gets that pissed every week.  But I suppose I won't complain.  You guys are giving me a job to do, after all.”  He flashed a grin at us, though it was primarily focused on Juniper.  There was a bit of stubble around his face, and I started to feel inadequate.

After that there wasn't really any small-talk worth reporting.  He tried to make us food, and I sort of tried to contribute, but this wasn't really a feast of kings as meals go.  Dry egg noodles, croutons, broccoli, cinnamon sticks and out-of-date fruit compote- I hoped the next thing I ate would be more wholesome.

After that Greg suggested sleeping arrangements which was convenient as my arm was getting tired from all this writing.  Theodore had to stick with sleeping in the outhouse.  Me and Juniper got the upstairs room, and Pierre was still unconscious, so he probably got the sofa like he had done for the whole evening.  But that wasn't worth thinking about.  Nothing was worth thinking about.  I had expected a lot more from my first day out, and got jack shit.  But I'd get to that in the morning.  For now, I laid on the bed and

\---

After searching every corner of his memory for the source of the welling brown eyes staring at him, he had come up blank, and Pierre had held sustained eye contact with a stranger for nothing.

“Hello.”  He thanked the heavens that the inoffensive word of greeting existed.  What else was there to say?  He didn't even know where he was.

“Hey.”  The stranger toed the line between boy and man, and took up much of the chair he was sitting on.  “You're awake, huh?  I'm Greg.”

“Oh.  Greetings.”  The beaten leather of his couch bed sunk as he shifted his weight to sit up, coddling his body rather than cushioning it.  “My name is Pierre, and... I don't suppose you could tell me what happened?  You see, I'm not really sure I know how I got here.”

Greg laughed.  “Don't worry about it.  This is my house, and it's not too far from where you passed out earlier.  I saw you guys after you got attacked.  Everyone's been healed, and the girls are upstairs and the weird guy with the glasses is outside.”

“Ah.”  Pierre rubbed some sleep from his eyes, steadying a head that seemed determined to drop back down.  “Thank you.  Sorry for troubling you like this.”

“It's nothing, seriously,” the boy grinned, “it's my job.”  

He reclined back on his seat, breaking apart the eye contact for a minute- though it was back again as soon as it left.  His irises were a very deep brown, almost black, and the moonlight streaming in from the window caught the whites of his eyes, casting them like spotlights on his face.  Spotlights that, incidentally, were gazing unrelentingly upon Pierre.  

His seat had seen better days as a couch, but it had seen even better days as a pedestal for a museum exhibit.  “Is everything alright?” It seemed like dreadful rudeness to speak up.  

“What? Yeah, yeah.”  Greg's face lost its maturity and its many angles for a fleeting couple of seconds.  His sharp jawline became soft, dulcified like a smudged stroke of pencil is under an index finger.  “It's nothing.  Sorry.”

“Is there something on me?”  He reached for his hair, whose disarray was no more offensive than its usual overflow.

“Nah, nah.  You're fine, seriously.  Don't worry about it.”  Greg could have been said to have laughed, then, if human laughs were meant to sound like quiet, abrupt shrieks.  “It's funny, it's just... you just look a bit like someone I know, is all.”

“Is that so?” Pierre found his usual brand of serenity again, and assumed it.  “It must be a coincidence.  I don't think we've met before.”

“Nah, we haven't,” said Greg, looking down.  “Just a resemblance.  This guy, the one I knew- he's got blonde hair.  Similar eyes, though.  Really blue.”

“I see.”  

“I mean, not _ exactly _ the same, but similar enough.  Yours are nice, too, though.  In- in their own way.”  The moonlight caught something else- a smattering of sweat across Greg's forehead, an uninvited guest to an otherwise-mild summer night.

“Thank you.”  An entire tidal wave could have crashed down over Pierre over the course of the conversation, and he still wouldn't have flinched.

Greg seemed to catch the aftershock of this wave after a stilted few minutes, his stomach making a miserable retreat.  “Oh god.  Fuck.  I'm sorry.  We've only just met.”

“We have,” said Pierre, “but why are you apologising?”  Any problem with the situation that wasn't the cold, damp hair hanging in his face like a homeless spider hadn't really occurred to him up to this point.

“We've just met and I started doing all that- that stuff,” Greg muttered into his knees.  “It's like getting kicked out taught me nothing.”

“Sweating?” The verb fell out of Pierre's mouth in absence of anything politer.  It was the sort of thing Marianne would have said, actually.  A  petite film-strip unfolded in his head, replaying a fond memory wherein she had probably said something like that to a teacher, and it had been quite funny at the time.  A grin began to emerge on his face, and in seconds was shoved away briskly by a little push-broom wielded by the reality of the situation.

“You know what I mean.”  A bead of sweat fled from Greg's forehead to his temples.  “Hitting on boys.”

“Oh.”  The suspense behind the situation snapped, as did the physical kind that elevated Pierre's eyebrow to a higher level on his forehead.  “Was that some kind of advance on me, then?  I'm sorry.  You'll have to forgive me for not realising.  I'm used to, er- slightly more brusque displays of flirtation, you see.”

Greg stared at him.

“I was in the school library, once, you see,” he elaborated, “and one of the student librarians happened to be attending to a shelf near where I was.  She swept her hand.  The next minute, I was floored with an anthology of the great Silken Lakes poets embedded in the side of my skull.  Above the spinning, I heard her voice- and she asked me to lunch.”  Pierre gave a soft, breathy chuckle.  “Am I made more attractive when I'm out cold?  I can only wonder.”

Greg stared at him some more.

“You do seem like quite a nice person,” Pierre smiled, “and I'm heavily indebted to you for helping us out like this.  Do forgive me, but I don't believe I'm quite ready for a relationship at this point.  It's all a bit complex, and I won't bother you with the circumstances.  I'd quite like to see you again, though, if that's alright.  Living in such a small village, I rarely meet new people.  It can feel quite lonesome.”

Greg stared at him even more, and then coughed quite heavily.  “Yeah,” he said through a coagulated throat, “yeah, we can keep in touch, sure.”

“Wonderful,” Pierre beamed.  “You'll have to remind me of this address in the morning so I can send you letters.  I'll probably just forget if you tell me now.  I was catching up on some lost sleep for a while after I blacked out, you see, and I don't think I was quite finished before I woke up.”

“That's alright,” Greg muttered.  “You, Pierre- if you ever get hurt again, come back here.  Whenever.  Just knock on the door.  I'll be in.”

“Thank you, Greg,” the other boy smiled, tossing further into the doughy sofa cushions.  “It's incredibly courteous of you.  I'll be sure to.”

Silkmoth eyelashes fluttered closed again.  Over the course of a few minutes, each part of him began to cease its movements, and only on occasion surged through with a gentle breath, as though the boy himself was a tide.

The other did no such thing.  Greg rose from his chair, his many grey clothes swishing and clamouring with him as he moved, and paced.  He paced a number of laps around an invisible rectangle circuit on a section of bare floorboards.  Eventually, he looked to the moon, and sighed.  

“Maybe, this way, I can actually save something.”


	5. lose one get the other

I woke up that morning after a brilliant meal. It was beautiful and sunny and I was fucking pissed.

“Juniper.” I screamed at her. “For the love of God, WAKE UP.”

She squirmed in her bed a bit, like a worm, making pathetic noises. I gave her a kick in the side.

“Marion, please,” She whimpered, choking, “let me get up.”

“This is all about you, is it?” I asked. “God I don't know how much longer I can put up with this. Get up.”

Eventually I got sick of waiting for the fat ginger caterpillar to move, so I went downstairs. Pierre and Whatshisname were down there, writing something, and I decided I didn't have the patience for that. So I left.

“Where's she going?” I could hear George asking as I shut the door.

“Oh, Greg, I'm sorry,” said the waste of oxygen, running out. “I'll see you again soon. Thank you for everything. I'm sorry, I can't leave her, she'll-”

“-Get what she actually wanted?” I yelled back at him. “God! Fuck off back to Drysdell's, won't you?”

“Marianne!” He yelled back at me. I wanted to punch him in the throat. “Why are you running off like this?” Distantly the door opened twice more and two more wastes of air came running out.

“While I'm pleased you've got this morning off to an exhilarating start, Marion, you could have waited until I finished showering.” I didn't actually care about what Theodore had to say but regrettably I heard his voice anyway.

Juniper made some more pathetic noises.

“Marianne!” Pierre's voice got louder like someone had stepped on his toe, which I found quite funny. “Where are you going?”

“Ho-ly shit,” I shouted, “I've had it up to my neck with all of you. Go back to school. I've wasted enough time.”

“What do you mean?” Juniper squealed annoyingly.

The trees rustled and some twigs snapped. For a minute everyone stopped but I didn't, because I didn't care.

“I didn't climb over that wall just so I could get attacked by something and go home after a night,” I screamed, “you fucking weaklings.”

“Are you going to address the part where you were the only one getting attacked, thanks to your own criminally small brain?” asked Theodore. He's a massive bastard. He said something else but I'm not wasting ink on that.

“I'm so sick of all of you,” I said. “I'm going to go off now and do some real shit. I don't know, find myself a damsel in distress or something-”

Suddenly something fell out of a tree in front of me. It was largeish, meaty and covered in Fuck me backwards. There was a girl in the tree.

“Oh, my God!” she cried. “That hurt. I'm in so much pain.” (etc) “Who are you? Please help me!”

I didn't actually know what to do. The girl faced me. She was a bit taller than me, skinny, like one of those models on the fronts of magazines who you could snap in half yet still looked like women somehow. Her hair was brown and curly and had some twigs in it, probably from the tree. Her hands were all covered in blood and her knees were scratched. She also wore some kind of nightdress-thing which was torn up a bit. I was a bit pissed that I didn't get any kind of “excuse me” or anything really. I wanted to say that somehow but it was really difficult to think of a way to yell at her for being a rude bitch without sounding poncy like Theodore and his ettiquete lessons. So I just kind of stared at her for a bit in the hopes she'd get out of my way, which she didn't.

This unfortunately gave the others a chance to catch up which I felt really bitter about.

“What happened?” Pierre asked. “Is there a problem?” He looked at the girl who looked at him.

Then Theodore and Juniper caught up. Juniper didn't say anything because she's a drip, but Theodore did. “You said damsels in distress, Marion. Won't you be kind and help her up?” I didn't bother telling him I didn't order the whole saving part. He went forward and helped her up anyway making what he said a bit fucking pointless.

“Thank you,” The girl smiled sweetly. She had a pretty smile and nice lips, but I felt sick looking at her. She was fluttering her eyelashes and all and looking at her was probably going to give me Diabetes. “It's so kind of you to help me. I was in so much danger.”

“Danger?” asked Pierre like she hadn't literally just said that. “What danger?”

“I've been running through the forest for so long!” she said, squishing her elbows together. She had to be at least a D-cup I reckoned. She had to be our age too though because usually with dumb slags that fall out of trees they don't get any older than 17. “I was captured by some evil forces because i use magic. They wanted to kill me and they locked me in a prison! I got so bloody when I climbed over the wall, and I fell down... I'm hoping

they haven't found out... oh...” She started crying except without any tears. “Oh, I want to go home but I don't know how to get there. I wish i hadn't gotten into so much trouble.”

“We could help you home, if you tell us where.” Usually with people like Pierre they offer more than a shitty set of directions if you're a floozy that falls out of arbours, like they take you home and get you clothes and food for a nice payoff in the form of gratitude sex but I'm guessing even he didn't want to do that now. Girl was filthy.

“I live in Merrowlake Town, which should be ahead.” Said the girl. “My name is Arlene, by the way. It's really nice to meet you all. What's your name?” she asked Pierre.

“My name is Theodore,” Theodore said stepping in front of him. “And it's a pleasure to meet you too. Someone such as you falling out of a tree almost gives me an incentive to enjoy nature.”

“Oh” said Arlene, standing up.

“This is Pierre,” He said pointing at Pierre and then me and then Juniper. “And this is Marion, and this is Juniper. We're just passing by here. Of course, it'd be a pleasure. Merrowlake, did you say? We're on the right path.”

“Why, yes,” Said Arlene, “it's very famous. Because of the magic school, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Theodore smiled. “We'll escort you home. Something very unfortunate could happen to you, dressed like that.”

Theodore is usually what happens to people dressed like she was but I didn't bother mentioning it.

“That's so kind of you!” said Arlene. “I'll have to get myself a new nightdress. This is all ripped up.”

I really didn't know why she thought we cared about that detail. Apparently the rest of us didn't get a choice in whether we got to lug her around or not, as she stood up then and started walking with us, which is just another example of why I hated this 'team' bullshit.

Theodore hangs back still, his signature expression still fully intact and functioning. Hands like rotten milk linger in the pockets of his labcoat. "So."

"So what?" Arlene smiles, sweet and slow as honey.

"So are you going to tell me what you're actually here for?" He darts a sharp, mocking eye at the retreating figures of Marion, Pierre and Juniper up the path. "You fooled them. Now fool me. I'll warn you, it won't be as stupidly easy."

"Aww," Arlene sighs, hanging her head and huffing dramatically. "I'm no actress, am I? So you're onto me. That's what you're saying."

"Not necessarily," he replies. "I haven't the faintest idea what your plans are, but consider my interest piqued. You can't get that bloody from climbing a wall. Marion and Juniper climbed a wall earlier and didn't spill a drop despite both of them being incredibly fragile and incredibly stupid. It looks like blood, it smells of it- but it's not yours. Girls as pretty as you always lie."

She giggles, framing her heart-shaped face with the smattered hand- and takes it down straight away. "I'll tell you something funny. My latest victim's last words were incredibly similar to what you just said."

A stinging pause passes; the only noises that sound are those of the snapping twigs ahead.

A doll's poisonous glare, thrown like an arrowhead, meets a nonplussed smile.

"What's the matter?" she asks. "Suicidal?"

"No," he says. "You're the girl of my dreams, is what."

"Fuck off," she says.

"I'm not your victim today," he leers. "I'd strangle those pretty pink nerve endings if you tried anything. I do think, however, you could forsake one victim in lieu of getting three at once. Sound good to you?"

"You're selling out your friends to a serial killer." She bears a wide grin, lashing a pointed tongue. "Wow, you really are a horrible person!"

"They're not friends."

"If you're willing to make this sort of deal, then maybe," she takes out the hand from his coat pocket and presses into it a small black cube, like a pill-box, “I could introduce you to some of mine a bit later.”

We walked through some paths and then some more paths and then past a sign and even more paths and soon there were some houses. We were in Merrowlake.

"Well, we're nearly there, said Arlene, "my house isn't too far away from here."

So now instead of mud paths we walked along cobbled streets with some houses along them and also a lot of churches. The air was all weird and starchy tasting. Arlene got bloody footprints all over the paving. I noticed a lot of washing lines. There wasn't many people out. No kids or anything. Nothing for me to trip over.

Also sometimes on bare fences or on posts there were notices tacked, big lists in big letters. They were some kind of public service announcement things about staying in your homes. I didn't understand it though. Plus I don't really like reading.

"Just here," Arlene said, and then she walked up to a door which she opened. i assumed this was the door to her house.

"Well, it's been a pleasure, Ms. Arlene" said Theodore.

"It's been ever so lovely meeting all of you," said Arlene, looking at all of us but looking for longer at Juniper but not at Juniper's face. "Would you like to come in for a cup of tea maybe?"

"It's polite of you to offer but we really must be going now," Said Pierre.

"Oh, we'd love to," said Theodore and pushed us all in.

I was slightly fucked off at being forced to sit down for tea parties when all I really wanted to do was fight some enemies and by slightly i meant very. I didn't drink the tea or the biscuits neither.

"Just make yourselves at home" Arlene grinned. "But- whatever you do- don't go into the cellar, okay? My baby brother's down there and he's incredibly dangerous."

I thought this sounded interesting so once Arlene started another conversation about her favourite lipstick colour (red) I went off to check it out. I wasn't exactly sure where everything in Arlene's house was but it was very clean. Eventually I found a door in the floor and I'm pretty sure those go into cellars, because otherwise what the fuck was everything in life I learned for?

The door was very irritatingly stuck. I think it might have been locked by some magic thing but I wasn't about to let something as stupid as that stop me. I tried and tried at the handle and even when I yanked it straight off the door wouldn't budge so I just punched the wood in and clambered through the hole I made. Fuckin magic-users never expect that when they put uncrossable locks on things.

There was a Ladder when I got through which I had to grab onto fast otherwise I'd fall down a hole. It was a long way down or at least longer than I'm used to climbing down. It smelt like ironworks. Like the one in the village. I hated the man in there. I used to laugh when he'd accidentally burn his huge fat hands on the hot metal things. In fact I was laughing now thinking about it.

"Who's there?" I didn't expect to hear. It really threw me for one. But I stayed on the ladder and eventually I got to the bottom where there was a room before me but it was really dark so I could barely see anything.

"Arlene?" Came a little voice.

"No" I said, "do I look like her to you you fucking moron." I don't think I look like Arlene. Arlene is someone I try not to look like.

Something made some rattly noises and some things clanged. "How did you get in here? The door was locked?"

"Not well enough" I said. Actually it was; but not well enough for Marion.

"Are you the police?" Asked the little voice. "Have you come to get me out?"

It was really kind of pathetic. Although I don't really remember why I came down, but I decided to talk to this small thing anyway because it was more interesting than just sitting in a circle and having tea or something.

"Arlene said her deadly baby brother was down here," I said. "Is he?"

"Wh- no!" The voice sounded really offended. "Ugh seriously is that what she's telling people? I can't believe it."

"So you're not Arlene's deadly baby brother?" I asked. "No!" Said the person. "I mean I'm not deadly. I mean I'm not her baby brother. I mean I'm not her brother. I mean i'm not a baby, I mean I'm not really any of those things. I guess?"

"So are you a boy or a girl?" I asked.

"Whoa!" I don't remember that question being shocking but they reacted like it was anyway. "That's a bit um..."

"Gender" I said "what is your gender?"

"I know what you asked!" they spat out.

"You're not her baby brother" I said "so what aI said "so what are you?"

"I'm Arlene's younger sister" they said sadly. "I hate her. She locked me in here."

"That's pretty hardcore" I said. "I thought she was just some random floozy who fell out of a tree covered in blood but she's capable of stuff."

"WHAT?" They said. "oh my god, no she didn't, did she? Crap, that can only really mean one thing. And I didn't want to put two and two together, but she really must be the Ripper..."

"I don't know what you're talking about" I decided to casually mention.

"Okay listen because this is going to be serious, and I know you're just a stranger but I can't have people just not knowing," said the voice. I can't stand being told what to do. "My sister- she's dangerous okay? She's not just a bitch for manipulating and bullying me my entire life, she's got plans for something. Do you know about this town? did you notice anything... peculier about it?"

I thought for a minute but can't think of anything.

"Ok well, you must have noticed the churches because, they're everywhere" said them, "so that's a big clue. There's a certain religion here which is shoved down our throats which isn't anywhere else. It's like a time-warp here, if you visit somewhere else. Girls aren't even allowed to wear trousers."

"Then why are you" I said. The voice was coming from a person in a dark spot in the room who looked like they were wearing trousers.

"I was getting onto that see, Arlene did this to me too- my short hair, clothes everything- so i could get into Bagnold's, the boy's school here and pick up resources for her to learn magic with because she didn't want to do it herself" they said "and she's been using her magic to alchemmise weapons. She makes them all sorts like blades and maces and hammers and god I dont know what else." "Sweet" I said.

"No!" They cried. "She's out there to hurt people. Theirs been a series of killings going on since about 5 years ago, all powerful men and various boys her age and I think they're from her. There's been even more ever since she found out she could do this magic thing. And I admit I wouldn't be saying this if Alec didn't teach me- our town is flawed, really deeply flawed and our authority figures are corupt to hell and back, but these murders are senseless and they're only making everything wrst. In fact, they only made Greg a suspect after he escaped the lynch mob."

"Oh Greg, that was his name," I said "I forgot it."

"Wait," they paused "what?"

"Some tall guy healed me a while ago but I forgot his name" I said.

"How tall?"

"Big," I said.

"Dark brown hair? Dark eyes?" "Yeah" I said. "And your sure his name was Greg?"

"Yeah" I said.

"Oh my god." Something began to roll down their face something glittery, and suddenly I started to regret coming down here."Holy shit. So he's really ok. Hes not dead"

I shrugged. this was really weird. i want nothing to do with this sort of thing.

“Maybe things are going to be OK” they cry- “it's all gone to shit but maybe there's hope after all, if Greg's- where was he?”

“The river” I said.

“Oh my god” they cried and huge tears were rolling all down their face, I could see them now all wobbly and wet and streaky- it was _disgusting_ \- “tell you what, i have no clue no fucking clue who you are- I live in a town full of purytanical nerotics and youre still the weirdest stranger I ever met- but thank you. thank you. no need to tell me anything else, im sorting this out on my own now. Enouhg of this cellar! It's my time to fight!'

“Stop crying” I said.

they started rummaging out in the darkness pulling out big, shiny, iron weapons. “I'll avenge Greg” they shouted “ill find Alec, Ill set this whole bullshit town straight! See them try and shove Imogen Underwood in a cellar NOW” all the while they snivel and snivel.

“so you're a girl.” I said.

they whipped around with their eyes big and bulbous and glimmering like a puppydog's. “that's not important and you know it,” she said. “this towns' batshit dogma can wait for later. Say can you do one last thing? sorry. Just cover for me so Arlene dosen't see me when I escape”

“Any excuse to leave you behind” I tell her “because i'm going to be sick if I have to watch you cry so pathetically.”

  


Arlene has got dressed since we came in. I come out of the stairs and she was in the living room with a big red dress on which had a corset and a hooded thing with fur on it. It was red. It was very red indeed.

“Were have you been?” she asked me, “you missed tea!”

“Double murder,” I said.

Arlene laughed. She laughed a lot. she threw back her head and laughed loudly. Her laughing showed off a lot of pointy teeth in her mouth- _ha, ha, ha._ Pierre and Juniper looked worried at me.

“we're going to the _capital_ ” Arlene said- “because I need a new _nightdress.”_

'Bunking off from school like proper teenagers” theodore smiles. His smile was like a great fleshy smear all across his face.

Those two in the back don't say anything.

  


So we go to the merowlake Train Station which is big and full of concrete and the air is full of smoke. and it smells burned.

It takes a banknote out of some guys backpocket to get me through the ticket gate which is annoying

because,

I don't even _want_ to go shopping. but she keeps _insisting_ and twirling around so her skirts all fly around

and the people on the platform stare and stare. And they stare and stare some more. so many people, men and women and men with briefcases and because it's summer some people exposed their skin. Meaty ankles and necks, as far as the eye could see

the train-tracks are huge and iron and beneath us lying lazily like huge slugs with wooden slats like teeth. Theyc ould fit Juniper in them. it would be very easy I think just to push her down their, so the next oncoming train could make her spine into mincemeat. crunched up, girl soup

i consider it, I consider it I really do,but a train comes first before I get to make my move. It is our train.

we get on the train and I get on but not before I spend some time admiring the reflection in the window which is of Marion's face, because I think it's just fantastic especialy my eyes: which are my best trait I think

because red is just my favourite colour!

 


	6. The Day We Lost Juniper

“It's funny, isn't it,” she murmured to him lowly, “how we agreed to this so quickly.”

“I don't believe we ever agreed at all,” he responded, “not that it matters.”

Silence passed, punctuated and accessorised by rumbling and incessant public muttering. Somebody made a jaunty journey through the aisle, knocking a suitcase against Juniper's pale leg. In a booth some few odd metres away, there was that girl, wheat-haired, tanned and freckled in striped stockings: her eye darted hungrily.

“To be made hostage twice in a row,” Pierre sighed, “dragged further and further across the country, is not something I thought I'd have to experience on a weekday.”

“I'll say,” Juniper muttered, her breath making a faltering laughter noise.

“I apologise, Juniper,” he said. “I'm sorry you got caught up in all of this. You've been a good friend to her, but I think something's come over. She's not... she's not the Ma-” He faltered mid-sentence.

“Which one is it?” Juniper asked. “Marianne or Marion? You always call her Marianne.”

Pierre didn't say anything.

“No, it's alright,” Juniper said. “I was never sure either.”

He made an ambiguous 'mm' sound in agreement.

The traincar continued to rattle. Hills scrolled by through the musty oblongs of glass that comprised windows; the horizon rose and fell in crescendo. Somewhere Arlene tapped her foot. The incessant _clack_ of her red heeled shoes felt like gunshots in the dull murmur of the commute.

“My mum used to tell me all these cautionary tales,” Juniper spoke up again, “about dangerous evil spirits who led children into deep dark places. Where's one of those now, huh?”

“I wonder,” Pierre said. His fringe blocked any sort of eye contact Juniper could have made with him- the other, visible eye was pinned on Marion's seat.

Juniper let her gaze wander from her inattentive partner. The light in the carriage was a fizzling sort of warm yellow, the sort that blended faces together. It didn't particularly emphasise any evil spirits lurking in the dusty crevices of the seats, either; she quite fancied one would crawl out of its hiding place and drag her into the darkness away from her current situation. She'd grown out of the requisite age range for her mother's hungry demons long ago, but would they discriminate now, with her bare knees knocking together and her cardigan her only safety blanket? That was the good thing about demons: they didn't care for numbers or elaborate sciences, or for that matter experimentation or progress. They ate your soul and then they left.

Juniper found no such simplicity in the little moving box she was trapped in, but did see something else standing up.

He was a tall man, dark-skinned and darker of hair, dressed handsomely in a tailored black suit, but the object of his focus managed to ruin his posture and the smoothness of the suit all at once. It was a handkerchief in his hand, bearing a sizeable hole and crumpled even further by the vice-grip the man had on it.

In all other aspects, the fabric was spotlessly clean, absent of all the marks a handkerchief was wont to earn during its lifestyle- things like tears. The same couldn't be said of this man's face: it boiled over.

“Pierre?” Juniper mumbled. “I think I might have found an escape route. I mean, it's probably going to be far-fetched, but it's something.”

“That's good, Juniper,” he responded. “What is it?”

“That man over there needs his handkerchief repairing,” Juniper said, “so we go up to him and offer to repair it, right? Arlene and Theodore will see that- it'll be a decoy- then when the train stops, we can sneak off.”

“You're the seamstress among us, aren't you, Juniper?” Pierre asked, smiling wanly. “This is your opportunity, not mine. You can go. I'll stay.”

“But Pierre,” Juniper frowned, “those three, they're all so dangerous. You can come with me, you know. Arlene's got some kind of plan up her sleeve, Theodore's in on it with her, and Marion-”

“Don't worry yourself with that,” he replied curtly. “Who are they without us but a trio of potential murderers looking to go out on the town? Somebody needs to keep them in check. I have a sword, so I'll be fine. You go, Juniper. Do as you must.”

“The rumours at Drysdell's were true,” she said, turning around. “You really are brave.”

“Not brave,” he responded, “idiotic and heartsick. Stay safe, Juniper, and don't get hurt.”

“Take your own advice, heartsick idiot,” she muttered, and her rosebud lips cracked into a wry smile.

  


“Sir?” Juniper's voice piped up from below at the man's waist. “Sir, I couldn't help but notice you're struggling a bit there.”

“Hello?” His voice fell out of his mouth; there was evidence that it could have been a mellifluous kind of baritone, but it was largely stilted by the shock with which he looked at Juniper. “Er, may I help you, ma'am?”

“Your handkerchief,” she pointed out. “That's a rather large tear in it.”

The man flitted his eyes between the piece of cloth and the face of the tiny thing beneath him. “It's not mine.”

“Whose is it?” she asked. “No good using a torn handkerchief, whoever it belongs to. I can fix it for you.”

His hunched spine relaxed somewhat, but the man's lips relented no words.

“You'll have to excuse me,” said Juniper. “I'm a firm believer in the random act of kindness. I'm a student of Drysdell's in the south, you see, and I'm always looking to give my school a good name. I work in the textile arts too, so I think I could lend you a helping hand.”

“Drysdell's,” he said, “but it's a weekday. You're normally at school now, aren't you?”

“Let me fix your handkerchief,” Juniper said, leaning in close, “and I'll clear up any and every possible confusion you might have about why I'm here. I'll start with this one- my name is Juniper Carroll.”

“Ma'am,” he said. “It might be too big a job for you. It was specially ordered, and the stitching's very complex-”

The hole, unprompted, sealed up as though it had never been disturbed in the first place.

“Oh,” he said.

“I would have felt bad, you see,” Juniper explained, “if I'd used you as an escape route without even helping you in compensation.”

“Escape route?” the man echoed. “Danger, young lady? Is someone harassing you? I'll address the staff and have it seen to.”

“Oh, not that,” Juniper said. “I've been known to tank harassment like a champion, actually. No. We can just both thank the heavens I'm good at repair work, otherwise you'd continue this journey with a ruined handkerchief and I'd continue it alongside serial killers masquerading as friends.”

“What?” he spat. “Ma'am, that's far worse. This requires the authorities. Mind you-”

“Mind me what?” Juniper asked. “That's a pretty reasonable answer to the problem, if you ask me.”

The man drew a deep sigh. “Alright- fine. Since the higher powers seem to have promised me hope through a teenage girl on a long train journey, I'll tell you my own story, but keep your voice down.”

“It's one with the floor, sir,” she responded, “I can lower it even further and it'll tickle the wheels of this train.”

“You see this handkerchief, this monogrammed handkerchief-” he exposed the stitching to her, an elaborate cursive of the initials _D.H._ \- “it belonged to my younger brother, Daryll. I'm Maynard Harper, and I work at the five-star hotel my parents own in the capital. So did he, until he was taken.”

“Kidnapped,” Juniper echoed. “Terrible.”

“My brother- he could have outdone any of your Drysdell's classmates,” Maynard muttered. “He bent the laws of nature to his will using just his mind, nothing else. He had this inexplicable power just to make things stop in their tracks- vehicles, machines, animals, people. Heartbeats. He never used it for bad. He was the kindest thing. Of course, when there's a psychic prodigy sweeping the foyer of a hotel frequented by the rich and famous- word gets out.”

“I never heard anything,” she said.

“It's peculiar, that,” Maynard said. “He was kidnapped. I'll never forget the woman who did it. Chalk-white, she was, with red eyes and glasses, and threatened to shoot up the whole place if she didn't get him. Security, police, secret services- nothing. None of them did a damn thing. After three weeks the police declared him dead. He vanished from the headlines.”

“Do you think he's dead?” Juniper asked.

“No,” said Maynard. “He was a kid then. There was so much love in his heart, he couldn't have possibly had it in him to hurt or even stop that lady. But that was six years ago. And this is now. He's no vigilante, but he's a fighter, alright. I know he's still out there. This handkerchief is the last thing I had of his. I keep asking around everywhere, it's my only proof- no results.”

“Sometimes, you know, being at the mercy of others won't get you straightforward answers,” Juniper said. “I thought my best friend was something, and she's another. I think I'm going home after she drags me out and now I'm on a train with a giggling maniac.”

“Don't I know it,” he replied.

“Perhaps we're not strangers on a train after all,” she said. “Perhaps our paths intersect in some way. I'm using you as a distraction so my so-called friends don't think anything of it when I sneak out. My only issue is not having anywhere to sneak out to.”

“You're implying you could help me find my brother,” Maynard replied, “but you know no more than I do of his whereabouts.”

“You've still got no word of him after six years, but you're confident he's alive,” said Juniper. “He's been kidnapped by a chalk-white red-eyed woman with guns and a possible agenda that would benefit from having some hearts stopped. I get good grades. It's enough for me to go on.”

“Are you sure?” Maynard asked.

“Oh, certain,” Juniper said.

“You are nowhere near the little thing I thought you were when you tapped on my shoulder,” Maynard admitted wryly.

“That tends to catch out a lot of people.”

The traincar made a series of violent lurches, and its amblings drew to a screeching close on the tracks. The signs of the capital's train station formed a new backdrop.

“So I think I can leave you now,” said Juniper briskly. “Be safe. Beware of serial killers, and don't trust girls who fall from trees. It was nice meeting you, Mr Maynard, sir.”

“I won't believe girls who fall from trees, but random ones on trains have established their trustworthy reputation,” said Maynard, “so to help with your search, I'll entrust you with this.” He deposited the handkerchief, neatly folded and displaying the monogram upwards, into her hands.

“I'll protect it like it was my own life, sir,” said Juniper. “Goodbye. Hopefully the next time I see you it'll be with your brother.”

Before any more words could have been exchanged, the train doors drew open. People began to flood out onto the surrounding platforms like an outpouring of water, and soon Juniper was no more than one ginger speck carried by that current.

 


	7. Darling, Dearest, Disappeared

It was a crushing shame, I found, that I didn't even get a glimpse of Juniper as we left the station. It was probably her plan. I do loathe goodbyes, though.

I hadn't been to the capital in a long, long time, and usually I traveled by coach with Emily-Rose rather than by train. The station itself was colourless: encrusted with litter and the ghosts of brochures, and being home to pigeons and nothing much else amicable. Fellow travelers swarmed us from all sides. Evidently I lacked Juniper's dexterity, as any escape looked impossible. Arlene, Theodore and Marion flanked me like they were my executioners.

This effect only worsened as we left.

As an ice mage, I've never particularly been partial to summer, but this was something different entirely. I had never seen a skyline so blue yet so bleak; some clouds were crawling across, dark grey ones, which accentuated what I saw much better. The city was filthier than the train station, and there seemed to be a homeless person stationed every couple of yards.

“Oh, I just remembered something!” Arlene piped up. There was never a voice that began to grate so quickly as hers. “Where's that other girl? What was her name... Jane? Julie?”

“Juniper,” I corrected her.

Theodore half-chuckled, and I felt my (already significant) hatred for him sink even deeper.

“Who _cares,_ ” said Marion, in something that was neither an acceptable indoor or outdoor voice.

“Oh, you're right,” replied Arlene, “I don't particularly care. Well, I have to go and make a call now at one of those transmitter booths over there. Wait here for me, won't you?”

Parting with a puerile giggle, she ran over to a block of black doors some amount of feet away and shut herself inside one.

Now, in hindsight, was a fantastic opportunity to walk off.

“A beauty, isn't she?” said Theodore, but he was no heartsick idiot.

“I believe we have different ideas of beauty,” I muttered.

“Oh, of course.” Theodore smirked over at Marion, who made a gesture so obscene at him I lacked the capacity to describe it. “So, Pierre. When are you going to tell us what you did with Juniper?”

Some key word in that sentence caused some certain kind of look to cross Marion's face. It was never a detail I had paid much attention to- but I could have sworn her teeth never seemed so sharp. “Yeah. Tell.”

“I did nothing,” I murmured, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“But of course you do, don't you?” They were like wolves. “You were the only one of us she was speaking to. What did you do to her, eh, Pierre? Cunning of you. Still waters certainly run deep.”

“I did nothing,” I said, “and even if I knew something, I wouldn't tell you. You never cared about Juniper or Juniper's wellbeing anyway.”

Theodore only laughed. “You don't have a reason to, either.”

“I do,” I said, “because I'm a human being, and that's more than I can confidently say for either of you two.”

Marion laughed- if I could call it that. It was the only thing stopping me from immediately feeling guilt over the insult. It wasn't like a few days ago when I could see her fighting off the tears that were surging towards her eyes.

I was not sure if these were even her eyes at all. Marianne's were their own unique shade- blue with a hint of grey, like a shoreline. These weren't.

Oh, they really weren't whatsoever.

She could have almost distracted me from seeing Arlene emerge from the communicator booth- which, with any other person, could have been reasonably inconspicuous. But this was Arlene, so the cage of her elaborate red skirt managed to form some sort of obstruction between her and the door- dislodging a hidden knife, which dropped onto the floor with a clatter.

It was gone as soon as it appeared, snatched up again by her matching scarlet glove. “Okay, I'm done now,” she said, her lipsticked grin stretching to areas of her face I previously thought indomitable. “We should do some shopping now!”

Shopping. That was why we were here, of course. She'd have to forgive me for managing to forget.

This, I soon learned, was the advantage of travelling to the capital by carriage- I didn't have to face the route Arlene was currently leading us down. She was like a shiny, red fishing lure to the tramps lined up across the street; she practically radiated money in all her mountains of fabric and corsetry. Their eyes followed the rest of us as we trailed behind her, pleading for more mercy than she entreated them to.

There were so many, I wished there was a non-verbal way to communicate the situation- that I had expected to be back at Drysdell's with Juniper and Marion by this time, and so had not brought a single penny with me- but there wasn't. I could only ignore them all, block out their voices from my ears.

A young girl's quiet plea for change had crossed me at one point. I remembered half-glimpses I had occasionally stolen of Marianne around the village on weekends sometimes- the emaciated ginger tabby prowling around her ankles, the girl herself at the base of a tree scrabbling around for mushrooms.

I felt, without a shred of hyperbole, like the worst person in the world.

Marion was walking in front of me. For once, having her ignore me was blissfully sweet- though was this really her? This was the question I kept asking myself.

One clear argument had made itself present all along. There were times at Drysdell's when necessity forced Marianne to brush up against me or be close to me in some way- things like crowded corridors and partnered exercises. I had learned from these instances that Marianne had her own smell. It was an odd mixture of upturned earth and the water from the river, and was nothing that was immediately appealing- yet it couldn't have connoted anyone else. This had vanished now; in the crowd there was a distinctly burnt mien about her.

That I were a bloodhound, and petty ideas about smells could actually tell me something conclusive! I didn't even know where this line of thought was leading me. There was an obvious explanation for her new scent- she'd emerged yesterday covered in the ash of dead spirits.

Somehow I longed for the turned dirt and the river water like one longs for a taste or a feeling. And, as much as I knew it was a bad idea, I longed to lean forward into Marion and pick it up from her just to be able to catch a trace of it, to prove my suspicions wrong.

No, that was wrong- I wanted nothing to do with Marion. I wanted Marianne back. The Marianne with a shred of humanity.

The next time I looked up I was face-to-face with that perverted grinning visage, and I was thrown for such a shock I almost tripped over my own feet.

“Well, Pierre,” said Marion, “you sure are getting a lot of looks from these filthy drunkies, aren't you? Aren't you?” The emphasis in her voice fell on all the wrong parts of her words, and I felt something in my lungs quiver.

There, it was unmistakable now- her irises were flooded through with a very deep sort of red. There could have been spears at my knees.

“I think they knoooow,” she drawled, “they know what you've _done_ , Pierre.”

I said something then- I intended to say something like _'I don't know what you're talking about'_ , but rather fell on an almost pathetic “Please just keep quiet, Marion.”

She cackled. “Keep quiet! Keep quiet, Marion!”

An intense sickness washed over me.

“You know,” she said in a low hiss, “I've gotta air all my thoughts out. Not enough room in a brain to keep all those thoughts and _her_ without anything falling out. Oh, she hates it! She hates it!”

Marion skipped off. Her flying legs made no sort of connection with my stomach, but they may as well have.

 _Her_. _She._

It was a fact I had long accepted that those two pronouns would always immediately bring up the image of one particular girl. There was just some part of my subconscious which didn't want Marianne to leave my head.

I suspected Marion had the same intentions.

 _Falling out._ What did that mean? It was not knowing that scared me more than anything.

Marion wasn't stupid- I knew that, I knew better than Theodore. A consistent stream of misfortune overseen by that face-splitting grin could be no coincidence. Was Marion psychic? There was no other way she could have appealed to every single fear I had. After all, we were walking through whole derelict sections of city- these were testaments to the role I had in this failure. A boulder in a landslide from the top of the hill, where the royal palace sadly overlooked.

I could have wondered to myself how the stand-in monarchs were doing- but it was self-explanatory, really.

We were entering bigger areas of city now, and buildings were starting to loom over us. There was probably even more filth here, but I wasn't paying much attention. _Her_ and _she_ clung incessantly to my thoughts. It was all I could think of now. Visions, each one more horrible than the last, were flooding into my head to entertain the gap in my knowledge Marion had made. Marion was not Marianne; even I knew that now. This girl skipping in front of me- though she may have had her hair, her freckled skin, her clothes and all of the requisite rips and tears- she was not her. So where had the real one gone?

More accurately, what had she done with the real one?

A very particular image, vivid in colour and detail, flashed into my head. Marianne in the corner of some filthy cellar somewhere, bound and pinioned and wasting away- and no doubt she'd have her lovely earthy smell and blue eyes, but those eyes would be shaking in fear. And even if she could have reconciled all the disdain she held for me enough to cry out my name somewhere in her shouts for help- would I have been able to hear, miles across the country?

I had to restrain a violent sob.

Being led through living monuments of everything that had gone wrong in my life by three unfeeling monsters wasn't setting an ideal scene for further delusion. I loved Marianne. That was the truth, as nonsensical as it was; as much as she hated me, and as strong the possibility was that my actions in the library the other day had caused all this. I had only wanted to help- but since when did my intentions hold any weight? She had fled the library near tears, and come back Marion again. It was far too late, by then, for any sort of apology. It hadn't even fallen on the same ears.

The worst thought of them all occurred to me: _is she even still alive?_

I began to lose my footing on the cobbled paving, and the three of them before me advanced out of my sight. Walking felt like swimming. Marianne, dead. Poor, sweet Marianne. She'd done good deeds despite it all, even for me on occasion. I knew she had a heart, one which was boundless in capacity- even if her love was a world accessible only to her cat and Professor Lovejoy, not me. This strange animalistic thing roving round appropriating her identity had forsaken all of that.

Animalistic- was that it? Perhaps this was a creature or a spirit capable of shapeshifting. Perhaps it fed off of pain and misery- that would explain everything. And Marianne, poor Marianne, would be defenseless to any such creature. She'd have no spells to fight it off with. Which would be why I'd never heard of any such creature, or seen one recorded. Most people could fight one off. Maybe?

I thought and thought, and the only logical conclusion that came to me was the reason Drysdell's had never really tried to push me into fields of magical animal study.

Today seemed to be determined to load as many negative emotions on me as possible. Regret, confusion, anger, fear- and misery. Dear lord, was there misery. There was a strong possibility that the library altercation was the last time I had ever seen the real Marianne. I had blindly, foolishly used that opportunity to send her running from the library biting back tears. If I had known the truth, perhaps I'd have taken her out on a walk, or for a meal, or to watch stars. No, even those things were too small- pathetic consolations, really. Nothing could soften this blow.

A blunt and incredibly immense pain immediately made itself known in my abdomen, strong enough to bowl me straight over.

This, I realised, was due to a sudden appearance of a newspaper stand which wasn't in my line of sight before. The masses of parchment that took flight around my head were evidence enough that the pain was due to a very real collision with the table and not just some flight of fancy.

My pain was external this time. Now that I had established that, I was faced with another issue- I was on the ground covered in newspaper.

The old woman behind the stall stared down at me for an unrelenting few minutes. It was as though the world had stopped. Pages and signatures descended like snow, and a runaway insert draped itself over my head. The old woman's eyes were glassy and the skin on her face looked to be slowly slipping away into folds and frown-lines. I could hear another cackle of Marion's in the distance, but could only look in dread at the woman. This had been an unfortunate coincidence of emotion and probably made the scene more dramatic than it really was.

“They dun' tol' me to move the table,” she said after a long pause, her voice whistling through her teeth- which had all presumably seen better days. “He tripped over, 'e did. I dun what they told me.”

I had already had my fill of ambiguity for today. “I'm sorry, ma'am, I wasn't looking where I was going. I'll pick these up for you.”

“Got some manners on 'im,” she muttered. “Rare fing these days.”

“Yes, well,” I said, “it's the least I can do.” Neither Arlene, Theodore or Marion had stopped to wait for me.

Some of the newspapers had glided into the gutters. They had landed face-up, allowing me to see the name of the publication despite filth. I picked them up anyway; a bit of stagnant water probably wouldn't be the only reason _The Daily Nollidge_ was seeing so few sales.

“Aaaag, don't you worry yer 'bout them,” said the old woman. “I ain't hardly sellin' anyways. 'Ese people don't need no newspaper. They a-riddy know. The end is nigh.”

“Yes, it's quite bad really,” I said, as politely as I possibly could.

“'F only 'ey knew,” the old woman said, leaning in, “'bout all them raids what been goin' on in all them magic schools acrorst the country. All t'other rags been silenced by bigger magic circles what been in on it. But the Daily Nollidge- we knows.”

I wasn't about to trust her, and I was ready to walk away- that's when it caught my eye. All across the table, in bold print: _DRYSDEL'S SCHOOL LATEST IN SOUL-STEELING RAIDS._ They had missed the second 'l', but I understood well enough.

“Ma'am,” I said, trying to calm the rapid hammering in my chest, “when- exactly- were these published?”

“Why, they just struck orf a coupla hours ago,” the woman replied, proudly. “'Em magic presses are good, eh? No time for jannicking when we gots important news to annunce.”

“So you're saying-” try as I may have done, I couldn't keep my eyes focused on any single strand of words before me. “Raids. There's been one on Drysdell's this morning. What's that meant to mean?”

“Dreffle, it is,” she muttered. “Huge groups of magicians been jumping inter magic schools an' whisking all the nippers orf. Teachers too. Possibly killing 'em all. This 'un, this Driz-dell's, it's the worst of the lot.”

“How so?” Blood was beginning to rush to my head. This was all a dream- it had to be.

“Well, as if the school weren't enow,” said the woman in a low rasp, “all them other village people went too.”

“Ma'am,” I glared at her- I couldn't help it- “I know you have to make a living. I understand. But _this-_ this is an awful thing to fabricate. Selling satire under the guise of truth- it's deceptive, it's insensitive-”

“T'int no lie!” she insisted, pointing a gnarled finger. “Look, we got us a phooter on the front page-” her yellowed nail indicated a pile of rubble printed on the front next to the article- “and we dun axed the former Cab'net Minister bout it, too. Strangest bloke I ever clapt eyes on, that Ezekiel Brockitt- but it's the trooth!”

“Brockett?” I echoed.

“Brock-ette,” she said, “the very same.”

Marianne's father. I faintly recognised the name. There were no other well-known figures named 'Brockett', anyway- what did he have to do with any of this?

I took up a frenetic scan for his name in the paragraphs before me- I found it next to a (horribly spelled) list of people I knew. _Kirsten Oliver, Nicholas Adair, Madeleine Blackmoore, Alexander Norrell_ : an abbreviated toll of survivors, whose presence on the list could solely be attributed to Mr. Brockett. Nothing else.

“Pay up, lad,” came the old woman's scratchy voice after a couple of minutes. “T'int a liberry I'm runnin'. I gots to scratch a livin' just as any rum ole rich boy pottering about coursing inter tables.”

“Oh god,” the words fell out of my mouth, “I don't have any money.”

I expected her to come out with something in response, perhaps to spew a few more dialect words at me, but she came over oddly silent. It was as though I'd crashed into the stand a second time, because she levelled that same empty stare from before at me.

“You'se Pierre Snowling,” she said.

“Um,” I felt a bead of sweat crawl down my forehead, “yes.”

“Dun you worry 'bout it, then.” The old woman burst into a too-large grin, one that showed off each and every one of the few rotting teeth she had to offer. “You pay la'er, and if you don't- that princess, she airn't gonna like it.”

The smile refused to abate. I took a newspaper, and I ran off as gracefully as I could.

 

I had no idea where the others had gone- I didn't know how long I'd been at the stand for, and they'd all wandered off. Hopefully the time I'd taken there was only long because it felt that way- and it wasn't a sufficient duration for any of them to start acting out.

My head was getting increasingly light. In such a short amount of time, my consciousness had become a veritable wasp's nest of words, names, faces and reasons to panic. I had just remembered Professor Lovejoy- whatever became of her? Had she escaped the raids, too? I had to count on her expertise as a teacher to get her out of whatever situation she was in at the moment- destiny had been sufficient in giving me my own mystery to solve.

After some wandering in seemingly-circular streets I only vaguely recognised, I found the fresh corpse of a fox in an alleyway. All of its legs were broken, twisted in directions entirely contrary to nature's intentions. Its fur was matted, its mouth frozen in a hollow frown. This hit too close to home; I looked up, and a trail of bloodied shoe-prints led me to Marion's legs.

“Well, where were you?” I expected to hear Marion but got Arlene instead, and a jolt coursed through my system. “You'd better not ditch us again, Peter! What use is a shopping trip if I can't get expert advice on my clothes?”

“My name is Pierre, if you'll remember,” I told her, “and I think you're doing fine on your own.”

Theodore snickered, but I didn't care for him or his contributions.

Marion didn't say a word. By now it was unmistakable: a shade of red too similar to blood swam in her eyes. Perhaps it was my imagination, but the edges on her seemed rougher, and her knuckles were blanched.

It was quite possible that I had lost the one I loved. Looking at this hideous copy, though, I didn't want to believe that 'lost' meant 'dead' in this context. No, if Marianne had been lost, I would take it upon myself to find her.


	8. Ladder Stitch

Juniper considered life to be full of duplicity. Sometimes, you saw glimpses of things and believed them to be short and simple journeys, only to find they were long and arduous with painful twists. Adolescence was one of those things. So, equally, was the train track she followed by.

The exact impossibility of her idea had only made itself clear about halfway through the walk, long after the rocky surface of the carefully planned-out lines had disintegrated into green. This meadow would have been easier to appreciate at literally any time other than this one. It was wide open and flat, and certainly showed no signs of Daryll Harper.

Daryll Harper. How stupid did you have to get to trust a man you randomly approached on the train, no matter how attractive he was? It'd be more useful to review her own vocabulary of curse words- then perhaps she'd find the anagram. She'd find the anagram before she found him.

The memory of Maynard's trembling face caused Juniper to eschew her doubt.

Even if she was being played for a fool, this wouldn't have been the worst of it, anyway. Mr Maynard Harper probably had good reason to believe he was being harassed. Perhaps if messages got passed on and she ended up getting a stern chat from the police, she wouldn't even hold it against him. This, of course, was assuming Juniper would get to see home again in the near future, which she doubted.

The sky was full of clouds now: dove-grey swabs with dark, foreboding underbellies. Summer had cowered. She couldn't remember a summer she had ever enjoyed. At least, not after she had joined Drysdell's. Drysdell's signaled the era of the green cardigan. She had traded all manner of things- self-esteem and self-love, feelings of safety, feelings of security- for heatstroke. The only consolation was that Theodore likely hadn't taken off his labcoat yet and so was probably sweating, wherever he was.

The bastard could sweat himself to death, she decided. The cardigan was his fault in the first place.

A soft breeze passed, but with the revelation that hit it felt like a gale: no Theodore. She was free for the first time in several years.

Somehow freedom didn't feel as sunny as she'd imagined. It felt unseasonably cold, and as though it was dripping from the sky. Dripping, and perching briefly on the brim of her hat before letting go again.

The freed girl stopped walking, and stood, dropping her arms to her sides. The rain got faster and heavier, jumping on grass blades and weaving itself within her ginger hair. A single drop trickled down her chest, hiding behind the neckline of her dress. Juniper shivered. It was much too reminiscent of Arlene and her searching eyes.

She had been much prouder of this dress when she had first finished sewing it. Some of it she had done by hand: she printed a floral design on the chiffon by herself, and made the ruffles that lined every edge, including on the underskirt. Being friends with Marianne had that sort of curious effect: she had dabbled in the other girl's world occasionally. A life without magic, for Juniper, was like a pair of spectacles she had picked up to squint through and then promptly abandon. There was no improvement; only an impossible blur on the other side of the glass. And afterwards, she had looked at Marianne, and the thought flashed into her head- _wow, you really are that blind._ The main parts of the dress were sewn together by magic in a matter of seconds.

There was nothing particularly wrong with Marianne's eyesight, to her knowledge. Marion at least seemed to have very corruptible irises, but Juniper ignored her most of the time. Juniper did know, though, that Marianne was blind in more ways than one. How on earth had she slept across the hall from Theodore for that long without at least asking questions, after all?

Perhaps she didn't care. There had been one March, however, where Juniper received a new pincushion from her. The revelation that this had been bought with stolen money later came to light, and Marianne spent a week painting over graffiti and picking up litter for her troubles.

She cared at least a little bit, which to her credit was more than most people did. Marianne just seemed to be more entrenched in her own multitude of issues most of the time- which was fair, Juniper thought. It just solidified her as a poor choice for a hero, and a poorer choice for a shield from Theodore. The appeal of a brash and stubbornly non-magical student was wild initially- but what could she do against knives, drills, nails, nerves? Sometimes Juniper wondered who was really going to go first.

So naturally a dress she had made by imitating her didn't hold up well. The wet chiffon was clinging to her skin. It felt unctuous, and not at all fashionable. It wasn't as if she had to worry about Marianne at the moment, anyway, or her hungry-eyed counterpart. Juniper got to walking again. The mud crept into the tracks of her shoes, determined to keep her tacked to the earth. But Juniper kept going.

She didn't know how long she had walked before there came a break in the monotonous green landscape at last: a church. There was no reason why it should have been interesting- it was a typical building in every way. Juniper didn't know many people who went to church, and this one was in the middle of nowhere, so the most notable thing about it was how pointless it seemed.

Shelter from the rain was looking like a good idea, though. The doors were cracked slightly ajar. They took considerable effort to push open: were they really that heavy, or were her arms really that weak by this point?

On Juniper's entry, a miniature rain shower came in with her, dripping all over the floor. Echoes bounced off walls, reverberating through cold and empty air. No church-goers, no minister, just silence.

On the opposite wall there was a large stained-glass window, bearing some kind of female icon. She was draped in blue and stood in a meadow, seemingly doing not much at all; she hadn't been drawn quite realistically, and her head took the shape of a slightly malformed pancake. Her face had been etched onto the glass- a placid half-smile, a long and distinguished nose. Her gaze pointed somewhere to the bottom-left of the room, away from Juniper. Somehow, it still felt as though she was looking directly at her.

Juniper was unsure of why, but tears pricked at her eyes.

Something twitched. It was unmistakable: the void in the air was overeager to be filled. It was soft, but juddery. The rain outside, as if on cue, turned torrential: great, fat drops smacking down on the roof. Juniper sealed the crack in the door behind her.

The surprise knocked the air from her lungs: a great cry of _“nooooooo!”_

This had only been amplified by the acoustics of the church: the cry tore through Juniper's ears as a detonating bomb would. This was immediately followed by scrabbling. Loud, loud scrabbling. Some candelabras at the front were upset in the rush and clattered to the floor. Something knocked into the lectern and yowled, knocking a book down and promptly tripping over it.

The something began to emerge, back arched, from the shadow that cloaked the far end of the room; its arms and legs flailed wildly, like a huge spider. As it advanced into better-lit areas, its resemblance changed to a huge spider that wore shorts. The culottes-sporting arachnid-thing continued to dodder aimlessly around the back of the room, shouting incomprehensibly and causing various objects to crash into other objects.

Juniper stared.

“ _You kidnappers!!”_ the something howled, apparently not in any sort of rush to respect a holy place. _“You won't-_ hweeeeeeh- heuuurgh-” here, they began to hyperventilate before continuing- _“take- meeeeee!”_

The thing made some sort of great bellowing noise like a war cry, straightening its spine- with the confidence of a military general, they plucked the book they had tripped over and flung it in Juniper's direction. It landed some fifteen feet away from her after bouncing off a wall.

“What,” said Juniper. This new development had bemused her so much she didn't even feel the energy to create an inflection in the word.

“Oh!” The something entered the light. “Sorry, I thought you were one of those guys.”

The something was not a giant spider- it was a teenage girl who wore shorts, if a bit of a gangly one. Her bobbed hair was the same mahogany shade as the lectern that now seemed to have bothered her a bit, and her grey eyes were huge and stared uncannily. “Hey! I recognise you!"

“Um,” said Juniper, “have we met?”

“You go to Drysdell's!” said the something, breaking into a huge grin. “I've seen you in the corridors! And your dorm is opposite Pierre's! Boy, am I glad to see _you!_ ”

“I don't think I know your name,” said Juniper. The girl was recognisable, now that she'd mentioned it, but not a face she'd paid much attention to. For one, the other girl succeeded her almost a foot in height, so even if they had crossed paths Juniper would have had to crane her neck to see anyway.

“I'm Amity! Amity Reilly!” She seemed to take an immense amount of pride within her own name. “Um, you were in Professor Lovejoy's group, right? Same as Pierre. So lucky! I got saddled with Mr Burnidge as a tutor. He's such a chicken biscuit _._ ”

Juniper didn't bother asking what a chicken biscuit was. “I'm Juniper Carroll.”

“Ahh!” Amity gasped a very elongated gasp, as though she'd just found her long-lost sister. “That name! There was this big circus because Professor Lovejoy didn't turn up, and then they couldn't find four of her students- one of those was you, Juniper Carroll! Oh! Oh! Oh!”

“What is it?” Juniper asked.

“Pierre wasn't there either,” Amity said. “And neither was- neither was that- that Marion _slag_ , and that other guy- you're all in the same dorm corridor, right? You must have seen Pierre, right? You know where he is?”

Actually, Juniper had begun to recognise this girl- it was one particular February the fourteenth in the morning when the Snowling boy had woken up to discover the walls of his dormitory had been papered with love letters, and the occupants of that corridor only saw a lanky female figure running off with a can of wheat paste clanking against her leg.

“Uh, he's fine,” said Juniper. “He went shopping in the capital with, um, some people. I bet he's having a great time.”

He probably wasn't, come to think of it.

“Oh good,” Amity beamed, cradling herself in her arms. “It'd just be terrible if he got taken in that raid...”

“Raid?” Juniper echoed. “What do you mean, raid?”

Amity's already-large eyes widened, becoming almost owl-like. “Wow! You're telling me you didn't know...?”

 

“I can't believe it.” After a long description of the morning's events complete with hand gestures, Juniper sat down in a pew, slumping her head into her hands. “I'm not at school for one morning, and...”

“I mean, _I_ survived,” said Amity, “because I'm tall, y'know?”

“That helped?” Juniper asked.

“Sure it did!” said Amity. “You see, those two people who jumped in through the window and started it- one of them was a dude who used this big freezy spell, I think, but he aimed it at everyone's heads. So I slipped through the net! And then I slipped through the net again when I managed to escape through a hidden passageway!”

“Our school has hidden passageways?” Juniper asked.

It sidetracked her briefly: she felt like punching herself. Hidden passageways? How had she not known? It could have saved her so many times, given her fewer reasons to be ashamed of her arms...

“Oh, it really does,” Amity nodded. “I mean, only the library assistants- like me!- really know about them, because you can only get to them by moving the bookshelves with magic. So that was what I did! And it was terrifying, y'know, one of the big armoured guys slipped in and chased me down, but I lost him in the forest somewhere when I ran all the way out to this church.”

“You ran all the way out here?” Juniper asked. Even walking at a leisurely pace with no rush had tired her out.

“I knew they were onto something when they made me join the cross-country club,” Amity said proudly. “My long legs saved my life!”

“You're one of the lucky ones,” said Juniper, though she knew she was using the term liberally.

“I don't feel very lucky,” Amity pouted. “All my friends are kidnapped and I'm scared to leave this church in case they get me again.”

“They?”

“Y'know, they- those big armoured guys. If they're guys. I'm not really sure. There were tens of thousands of them, it was like an army! And I guess those two people who were in charge, too. I'm not sure if they noticed me escaping, but-” Amity shivered- “I don't think they'll be happy that I did.”

Juniper thought for a moment. “You said one of them used a freezing spell.”

“Yeah! Gosh, it was the weirdest spell I've ever seen in my whole life. Nothing like anything they teach us! Everyone just- stopped. Even Master Drysdell. Like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“This person,” Juniper said, “what did they look like?”

“Well, I couldn't see very well, but,” Amity started drawing eccentric shapes on the floor with the toe of her boot- “he had these really weird orange eyes. Like, almost glowing. And he was black, and kinda skinny, and- oh! He had a hook for a hand. _That_ was weird. And he was wearing a suit, but it was all ripped and torn.”

“Hmm.” Juniper tried her hardest to conceive these into a face that matched her suspicions, but it was all a blur. “Anything else?”

“I don't think I can really tell you much else,” Amity insisted, crossing her arms. “I only got a glimpse of him. He had a partner too, an older lady wearing this black uniform-looking-thing with a big gun- but it was really difficult to see them. Like I said, those big armoured guys were everywhere, so they were blocking the view.”

Juniper sighed. “What did the big armoured guys look like?” She was beginning to lose hope in this situation altogether.

“Well... they were big, and made out of metal, and...” Amity began to resemble a philosophy textbook drawing of humanity's greatest thinker- her brow deeply furrowed, her finger posed against her temple, loose mouth screwed up in a thoughtful frown. “Hmm, what _did_ they look like? It's really hard to describe. Like I said, they were really big, and made of metal, and stood up on two legs...” She began to look around the church for a metric of comparison. “Aha! They looked almost exactly like that thing coming through the door.”

Her mention of it seemed to doom the aforementioned portal: Juniper turned around slowly, greeting her own dread, and the thing was torn straight from its hinges.

“Oh my god.” Amity suddenly ceased all movement. _“Oh my god, they're here-”_

She was bound to have screamed some other things in that moment, but Juniper couldn't possibly have heard: something advanced into the chamber bringing earthquakes with its huge, plated feet. That wasn't even the end of it- with it followed more, and more, like a parade of great metallic elephants.

“ _We're gonna be captured,”_ Amity sob-wailed, dropping to her knees, _“I don't wanna diieeeeee-”_

Amity flopped onto her side and fainted, leaving Juniper all alone in the circle of giants.

Things were still for a second.

And then they weren't. Everything came forwards all at once in a spiral of cold, brutal fists, and had so much as a hair been in the wrong place then Juniper would have fallen even more quickly than Amity- but it was as though a dam had burst unleashing an immense torrent of adrenalin, overriding any fear this situation would have affronted her with. Perhaps these things were fortunately slow, perhaps Juniper had sprouted wings on her ankles, but time seemed to slow down.

During the few minutes that elapsed, perhaps a thousand thoughts had jerked through her head at once. In particular, the question rung out- _what can I do?_ And the only thing she could think to answer it with was _sew_.

So for each metal giant in the room she summoned thousands upon thousands of needles. It was a sound unlike any she'd heard as the rainstorm hailed down upon them, puncturing through the metal- she looked up and saw these behemoths studded with tiny needles all over, struggling to move.

It was the thought that distracted her: _why didn't I just do that to him?_

Perhaps, since she'd never flown on the wings of a rush like this, it had just never occurred to her. That tight cage on her imagination would have never been broken, had this peculiar turn of events not compelled her to rip it to pieces like she did her enemies.

“ _Come on, now, Juniper... what could you possibly do to me? You use household magic. It's useless. I don't even think anyone would believe you if you told them. Why would they? You're just an idiotic little girl.”_

Juniper turned around and saw Amity laying there, again- only this was not Amity. This was a memory un-repressed from years ago, the year she joined Drysdell's- and she was not in a church but rather the disused _Laboratory W-2B_ , where the disintegrated spine of the _B_ had deceived her into thinking she was in the place described on her timetable.

She wasn't. She was not in the right place at all. The person lying there was rotting and disintegrating too, with each of their organs segregated into little jars. And, outraged at her presence, loomed something cold and not-quite-human.

The main difference was that these metal things didn't wear labcoats.

Once she snapped out of her trance it was too late- she had been grabbed by the scruff of her neck. Gravity didn't seem to want to help her now as her feet lost contact with the floor. The great steel hellion took an almighty swing, and she found herself on a rapid journey facefirst into the wall; one she could only eject herself from if she shrugged off the cardigan.

The subsequent drop to the floor was abrupt but not, as she'd previously been led to believe, painless. Shock eddied through her body upon impact, numbing her arms and legs. Juniper didn't bother to move after that. She simply remained, smattered across the floor like some kind of fire-headed gelatinous substance that nobody wanted anything to do with.

Death was imminent in the shadow of the giant above her, who was obviously going to pick up on his last mistake. In anticipation, she closed her eyes- in the very corner, before the darkness, she realised the giants had a human accompaniment after all. He hadn't made any sort of movement or sound so far, and only attracted her attention through a strange glint that bounced off of him.

Death never came.

After one minute which felt like at least ten spent cowering, Juniper dared to open an eye and address the source of the delay.

Indeed, even if the giant did want to attack her, he couldn't have done- he was suspended in an odd orange glow now, frozen in place more like a statue made to commemorate his futile battle efforts. Her cardigan fluttered above her head, a woolen green flag.

Instantaneously she realised her new vulnerability and crumpled, wishing to be in the world of the unconscious with Amity.

The peers of the giant before her had been frozen too. They remained stuck in a similar way, arms and legs suspended in varying positions, looking like a dense metal forest with ectoplasmic orange foliage. Only one noise happened among it all: the pained squeals of a well-beaten pair of dress shoes shuffled among these towering things, until Juniper found herself face-to-face with the stranger.

“I'd like to see your arms, please.” His own were folded behind his back in an authoritative manner, and though he stared, his stare wasn't so much demanding as asking- Juniper thought she would wake up on the train again and be forced to proffer her ticket.

“Who are you?” she asked, but it was no sooner than she actually took the stranger's appearance into account that she realised she probably already knew the answer.

He was tall, much taller than her, and black. The tendrils of his hair, some fusion between dreadlocked and braided, were tied away from his face with an oilcloth, refusing to detract attention from his angular features that seemed to have been carved and weathered very like cliffs. The suit he wore was as dark as witching hour, torn at every corner, punctuated with a single tie. There were two incredibly noticeable features on him above all- his flame-coloured irises, and the gold-plated hook replacing his right hand- and Juniper couldn't decide which one to focus on.

“Show me your arms,” he repeated.

Juniper, not wanting to invoke the wrath of the right hand, did.

At this point it felt incriminating. At last they saw the light of day: tiger-stripes, pinpricks, bruises. She presented this scrapbook of past traumas to him not expecting much of an answer. It had been a while since she'd properly looked at herself- some of the deeper, older scars were sealing up at last, knitting themselves together in ugly mounds of flesh. The newer ones represented a newer technique: he'd taken to scratching, and these marks left faint little blue-purple nebulae in their wakes.

“Did I do that?” asked the stranger, gesturing to his accomplices.

“No,” Juniper said. “Some of these are from years ago. Theodore did most of them. But the pinpricks- they were all me.”

The words fell in an orderly queue from her mouth, as though she was just requesting her usual meal at dinnertime. It felt so weirdly easy to say it all.

“Theodore,” the stranger repeated, frowning. “Why did he do that?”

“On my first day at school,” Juniper said, “I went into the wrong laboratory by accident, and found out he'd robbed a grave to dissect a body. He wanted to shut me up. It's been continuing ever since.”

“I'm not going to capture you,” announced the stranger. “Get out of here, and forget you ever saw me, alright?”

“So you killed everyone at my school, and now you're leaving two survivors instead of one,” said Juniper. “How chivalrous of you.”

“I did not kill them.” The fire in his eyes suddenly became very pronounced indeed. “My boss did. She's the one with the gun. She's in the area. She could be here anytime soon, and will not be happy to see you alive. You had best escape.”

“Why are you doing this?” asked Juniper.

“I'd feel bad,” he said, gesturing to the hook-hand. “The woman who runs Lacrimosa school in the west did this to me. She had a sword. It came straight off.”

“Theodore only ever went for my arms,” Juniper said, “because the thing I valued most was sewing. He wanted to watch me slip into despair, not being able to do what I loved anymore. He used to eye Pierre's sword so hungrily.”

“You see,” he said, more softly, “it's easier to abduct a hall full of students and teachers if you don't assume they know your pain.”

“There's a lot of love in your heart.” The phrase caught on Juniper's breath.

It snagged him, pausing him for a moment. “That's a nice thing to say,” he murmured.

“Do you miss your brother sometimes?” Juniper asked, tilting her head.

“I miss him all the time.” And then, “how did you know I had a brother?”

Juniper extracted the handkerchief from its safe place, folded up in her shoe, and cast it towards him. “Let's just say I'm a big fan of coincidences today.”

He picked up the thing from the floor, examining the monogram with an almost scientific level of amazement. “How,” was the only thing to escape his lips.

“Your brother misses you, Daryll Harper,” said Juniper. “I think you should stop kidnapping people and just go back home to be with your family. He was quite distressed about it on the train earlier.”

“That can wait!” he cried, clutching the handkerchief to his chest. “At least, until I repair the damage I did. I never wanted to work for them, you know. I want to destroy them from the inside, but-”

“But what?” Juniper asked.

“I'm alone,” Daryll murmured. “Even psychokinesis won't make up for that.”

“Alone?” Juniper echoed. “But there's a perfectly conscious accomplice right in front of you.”

Daryll looked up at her in amazement. Saying nothing, he offered his one hand, which she took.

“Let's take those who tried to control us,” Juniper muttered, “and crush them beneath our feet.”

 


	9. meat.

arlene decided she was sick of shopping and so did Marion, so we're back on our ways to the station now.

 

so over we go, skipping over

fat carcasses and paving stones.

 

every time i see people i think of people's veins, how they're all knitted up in big cushions of meat, and wouldn't it be fun to just

rip them out?

 

but we get to the station and there's nobody there, just some ticket gates and holes in the walls. they're holes big enough to stick your fingers in, all of them, holes and holes and holes and holes. the walls are big and bricked, not fleshy, so unlike a person nothing comes out when you make a hole in them.

 

which is disappointing, i think.

 

there's even a muttering behind the front desk. little peeps of people. this body is useless, but at least it has _ears-_ they pretend like i can't HEAR them because i can't SEE them! a stupid mistake to make. i know if i was there, one of those little gibbering piles of flesh in a uniform i would have the sense to know.

 

voices are what come out of the holes in the walls, dribbling and dribbling and running down in pathetic globules, and they drip into puddles of milk on the floor. the floor is soggy, with pleas for help.

but of course it would never be me.

 

of course silence wouldn't save you either: i can smell them, yes i can. i am the butcher. i know better than any of these idiots walking where there's a bouquet of heads: because they have that rich, fleshy smell. even as it enters her nose i can feel it already, that soft stuff in-between her teeth, ripping and ripping away into layers of tissue

 

but arlene is annoying she's really so annoying: she steers me outside where there's a train waiting.

 

the train is empty and _i_ _really must say i'm disappointed- that's empty too_

 

what's the use of these huge, travelling cans if they're not packed to the brim with juicy arms and legs? if there's not even a hand that slides down a railing or a foot that bounces up and down up and down or hips that swing when they navigate

what is it for?

 

have to admit that Arlene is not impressing me very much. the hunger she has made me think we had something in common, but she's just another _moron_ who only talks and persuades using the flesh she has on top of OTHER flesh like it's a big deal,

something to be proud of.

_it isn't._ i could take a knife and bisect those perfect breasts and tear out those pinched ribs and then she'd have NOTHING to brag about

i let her know this.

 

the train gets going with a big sound: _skrEEEEeeeEaeaaEkkhgkkh..._

just like that almost.

the car sways back and forth back and forth on its haunches. tunnels flash in and out of us so we roll around in the yellow

and eventually Arlene's feet leave and Theodore's feet leave. so i am alone with Pierre for a while who is PRETENDING, albeit rather badly, to _ignore_ me

 

humans are a pain.

 

Pierre's nose is stuck in some sort of newspaper: he can't cover his face well enough because i can see a portion of it. it wobbles gelatinously, pulsates, throbs with the disorder i come to know as emotion

how _IRRITATING it all is!_ those magics that blow around him like squalls: I could eat those all up too. send them sloshing down her quivering throat. magic-users think they're smart

but you're not smart if you drilled a hole in your skull to replace your brain with sparkles and charms, _are you_ , now? no. you're stupid the worst kind there is

but that isn't even the thing I hate the most about him- there are lots of things I hate about him because he's everything I hate but the thing I hate the most about him is the sword. he wears it on his back and _i cannot STAND IT_

the damn thing that gleams in the light: i want it GONE

FOREVER

 

we havent even been moving for very very long but the train is stopped again. just like that: it creaks and stutters forward and dies. i wish humans died that quickly

he looks up from his newspaper and his eyes are wide with _fear_ the way i like them

and Arlene's arms and Theodore's arms are back with an axe and a saw

“it's very well time I should think” says Theodore or something along those lines, something scratched and marred with stupid schoolboy epithets

“you two can try to run if you want” Arlene smiles, that big grin full of so _many_ teeth, “but your ultimate purpose will be to feed our Lord Gawain's plan with your souls. so come along now, join the rest of your friends-”

“you-” Pierre stands up and cries, and he's electrified with pathos now i just can't help but LAUGH “those raids. your people were behind them.”

“you're entirely too late to do anything about it, sweetheart,” Arlene grins again- “so just stay down like men of your sort should, _okay?_ Theodore you get him- I'll get Marion-”

now this is where she is wrong, _HORRIBLY_ wrong-

 

her first mistake is thinking that I will just stand there whilst she charges toward me with that axe- when in fact I rip it out of her hands. her second mistake was wearing a corset today: like she could _REALLY_ afford to compromise on the air that fills her lungs when she crashes to the floor,

i make sure _her_ boot stays over her neck

Theodore turns from whatever pointless fight he's trying to engage in to look at me interestedly, hiding behind the obvious pretense that he's had this situation figured out

“hmm, I had some inkling this would happen-” he obviously doesn't, the fucking idiot- “you're an interesting one, Marion.”

“did you, though?” I ask him, and Arlene claws at the ground but mostly at the ankle, “ _do you_? do you KNOW what you're _dealing with here?_ is it something your pathetic human brain can UNDERSTAND- because I, _don't think you quite do.”_

Arlene is _squirming_ and _buckling_ beneath her and her voice goes all reedy- “why don't you fucking help me, Theodore-”

“dissociative identity disorder,” he says, nodding, and Pierre looks confused besides him- “it's been obvious, hasn't it, ever since we first met. you're two identities underneath one roof, aren't you? they control your thoughts, actions, opinions, _intelligence-_ ” he leers- “really, you're a textbook example.”

“and you,” i say, “are a _fucking moron.”_

i fling the axe at him; i only JUST miss

 

but the terror ignites in his eyes and it's exactly as i wanted it

i kick Arlene away; she struggles for too long and it gets boring quickly. she climbs to her feet choking all the way

“this is nothing you'd know jack shit about, you _idiot_ ,” i hiss at him, pacing forward, “and looking me up in a textbook won't save you. nothing will. you sound _ridiculous_ \- you're WRONG, you know. that thing you know as a Marianne is going to follow you all into _hell_ soon.”

“so this isn't what i think it is?” he's trying his normal smug smile but it falls so flat on him I can't help but _laugh_ and LAUGH and _LAUGH_

“nothing you think is true-” I say when i'm at an arm's length from them- “you're all little Mariannes, trapped and screaming beneath a thick layer of weakness. i am nothing you will have ever known about, _human-_ I will _EAT_ _you up.”_

 

i make a lunge for his throat and the bastard isn't quick enough to dodge me this time. i squeeze it for all the empty space it's worth: i can feel bones in there.

“ _you're both disgraces to the Lord,”_ i tell them, gripping harder, _“and HE will eat you up.”_

“what the hell do you think you're DOING sitting there” Arlene screams at him pulling him out of my hold- “this isn't _worth_ the effort”

she takes out a little black box and the two run off, _gone._

 

my hands ACHE to _snap_ those little bones but now it's just me, and Pierre.

 

“you've _devoured_ her,” he says to me in horror. “you took over Marianne's body and you _devoured her_ , you _monster.”_

he says the word as if it's not meant to be accurate which i find just INCREDIBLY hilarious.

“she tastes _delicious_ ,” i grin at him. “every piece- every memory, every little piece of person- i can't get _enough._ you wanted some too, didn't you, Pierre? a taste of her. in ALL the crevices.” i swing her hips when i get back my axe from the wall it's embedded in- the gash it's made sucks onto it-

he cringes. “you're _vile._ ” as if it's an insult. he's uncomfortable now. ripe.

“you want your Marianne back,” i tell him.

“i want you to release her from wherever you've got her, so she can be herself again-” he corrects me, standing up straight. “and _you_ , Marion, i do not care for you. i want you to _DIE.”_ he's shaking now. “and if that has to be by my hand then _so be it_.”

“come and get her,” I smile.

 

“what?” he's paling, he's cowering. i'm stepping forward.

 

“you have your chance,” i grin at him, “i haven't eaten EVERYTHING yet. she's still in here- i can _feel_ her _wriggling-_ ” i make another movement with her hips and he recoils further down- “shouting for help- _oh Marion stop don't hurt him you're a monster get out of my head-_ and all _that_ shit. come on. come be her knight in shining armour, eh?”

i ready the axe. its handle feels great- so thick and hard and long. it's made of wood. i make her caress it with her hands as i move in.

he looks all sickly as he reaches for that fucking sword. “i'll kill you, I swear, i'll kill you-” but I really DOUBT it, because who could kill anyone trembling like that?

he raises the sword and I more than raise the axe, bringing it down on him. the sword only just protects him as it clangs off. “fight,” I tell him, “kill me, why don't you, let's see if you really can, you _weakling._ ”

 

i swing the axe some more in big full happy circles and he can only make tiny movements to protect himself and it's oh just _pathetic._

 

“you'll die in _seconds_ ,” I cry- “i'll dig you a grave and you'll flop straight into it like a _fish_. the fox put up more of a fucking fight than you do-”

“well, you can thank Marianne for that,” he scream-cries, “because if you didn't look like her- if you didn't have her body and her life to- to _appropriate_ , then maybe i'd just bring my sword down on you like any _beast_ and you'd TORTURE us no more-” there's tears trickling down his face and i have to laugh, laugh, laugh

i don't even need the axe next- I kick him and he's not even prepared for that, the _simplest_ little thing: he falls into a corner.

“what a stupid death you're about to have” i say and i ready my axe like the executioner; “not even trying to hold up your end of the fight.”

“it won't be stupid,” he mutters, “if I die, fighting for her- it won't be _stupid_ \- you only think it would be, because you don't know HONOUR, you know of bloodlust and greed and nothing else-”

“i don't need to know anything else,” I sneer. i press the blade of the axe against his exposed neck and he quivers so _delightfully-_

“no, I think you do,” he says to me, and drives the axe away from his neck with his hands. then he does something annoying which is clamp down on her shoulders in a grip which i can't move out of- but it's this PATHETIC body's fault not mine so i'll find a way out-

 

“because you don't know _love_ \- i do, Marianne does- and she has me here, fighting to the end for her, whereas you will never have anyone. you will continue this sick campaign on your own, and you will _rot_ , the earth will _claim_ you- you'll descend into whatever miserable plane such a non-human thing would go to, _ALONE._ we'll live on.”

i can't say a word because this makes me so SICK

 

and he pulls her body closer-

“and before you decide to take another thing of hers for your own advancement- I would like to make perfectly clear that this is a parting gift for Marianne, not you.”

he suddenly grabs her and kisses her lifeless lips softly- but also fiercely

and i am _disgusted_ with this, the whole damn thing-

but there's no TIME and i've got no TIME to be disgusted- the light is _coming_ and her hands are coming to grab me

and like that

 

i'm GONE

 


	10. His Best Friend

It's all reds and purples and strange flashing shapes for a while, like closing your eyes in the face of the sun. The first coherent thing I see rising out of this mess is a tree. There's nothing particularly weird about this tree- no wild waving arms or hidden eyes- but it does seem to be dappled in lovely afternoon sunlight.

Soon more trees pop up, whole clusters of them. The tiniest of breezes seeps through them. Grass starts to grow, reaching towards me then bending backwards, until everything is carpeted with green. Some little wildflowers emerge too, with colourful heads of pink and purple and yellow.

I wonder, briefly, where the hell I am.

I try to get up and move, but can't- I'm anchored to wherever I am. I'm not even sure if I _am_ here- I look down and I can't see my feet.

Perhaps “where am I” is the wrong question to ask. “Where is this” would probably be more accurate.

The faintest of familiar _creak_ s sounds in the distance, and some black iron-wrought walls unfurl on the edge of the horizon. It's then I realise- this is a hill I'm on.

I know exactly where this is. I've lived here my whole life. This is Greenbough.

No, no. The more I try and make sense of the place around me the more I get confused. This is Greenbough, but it's not the one I know. Buildings are popping up in the corner of my eye- I can see the florist's and the window shows no signs of damage. And now that I mention it, the gate to the cemetery is creaking, but it's not quite as kicked-in as I know it.

I know Greenbough probably isn't where I actually am, where I actually exist, at this point in time- whatever time it is- I'm somewhere else, anywhere else.

I wait for any sort of clue. And then a little girl runs straight past me.

It's like I've been waiting for her all along: I'm suddenly allowed to move, but not of my own accord, only to follow this little girl as she runs up the hill.

I don't recognise her at all. She dresses differently to the few small children who live in the village I know. She wears a puffy blue dress with a white pinafore which is tied at the back in a bow that flutters like a butterfly in the new breeze she's created for herself; her shoes are a shiny black that squeak for her to slow down, her socks so dazzlingly clean they almost hurt my eyes. A ribbon the colour of the sky adorns her head, covered in straw-coloured curls.

I swear I don't recognise her. But she feels so familiar.

It's when she clears the hill and pushes open the cemetery gates that I realise. She closes the gates very carefully and I see her face through the gaps in the bars. Her eyes are big and blue, with a hint of grey, and her skin is a very pale ivory, but it's covered in freckles.

This is me.

I'm watching my younger self. I'm really not here- she doesn't acknowledge me as I keep following her. The gate does nothing- I pass like a spirit through the barrier before me.

This is the only cemetery of a village I've always lived in, but it's foreign land. The hill just keeps going up, but younger me takes it with trepidation. Most of the graves are worn-down, and many of the headstones have had their features stolen by time, noses wobbly and eyes staring dazedly into the golden sun. My younger self starts to look in all sorts of different directions, her face a picture of excitement. I listen close to what she says:

“Hello, mister!"

“Hi, ma'am! I like your hat!”

“Haha, good puppy!”

“Good afternoon!”

“Hi!”

But there's nobody around but her and my consciousness.

It turns out I'm wrong again: even though she sends out greetings left, right and centre she doesn't stop for anyone until she's at the crest of the hill, and turns her attention to a very tangible boy lying by a grave.

It takes a second for it to register that he is actually alive: he's tiny against the great jutting stone, paler still than her, and his watery blue eyes have a sort of milky quality to them. His face is turned inward, blocking part of the inscription- all I can read is _'HESTIA'_. It doesn't look as though that's his name, though I don't know him, so I'm not sure I'm ready to make any assumptions.

Wait a minute.

“ _Hellooooo!”_ my younger self calls out, and it's like she's summoned lightning to rip through the sky and strike him, because the little boy jolts violently to attention, his limbs flopping beside him like a doll's.

There's tears trickling down his face. Oh god. What is this I'm experiencing, anyway? Is some cosmic thing trying to guilt-trip me by forcing me to watch my younger self disrespect someone's emotions? I don't remember this, though.

I say this, but there's something else familiar in the little boy's widened eyes.

“Hello, Pierre,” she says, grinning from ear to ear. “How are you today?”

Oh.

Oh god, that _is_ him, isn't it? Right down to the scruffy brown hair and the sleepless-looking face. That's Pierre. I knew Pierre? Wait, did I?

I just asked how he was. And he was lying down next to a grave, crying. Oh hell.

The little Pierre blinks a couple of times. Only the tiniest of things escapes his mouth- “Marianne?”

It's funny. Give it ten, eleven, twelve years, puberty, inevitable changes in circumstance- he says that name the same.

“Hello, Pierre,” younger Marianne says again, as if he hadn't heard her the first time. “How are you today?”

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“I wanted to play hopscotch,” she beams, producing a box of chalk from the pocket of her pinafore.

He quivers at the sight of the box, as if it's some kind of ominous divination tool for the calculation of squares and hops. I suppose, to him, little Marianne's intimidating appearance is justified- the sun is on its descent and has expounded the last of its energy on her back, illuminating her from behind and turning her head of flaxen curls into a huge torch, a supernova. Meanwhile, he cowers in the shade of the gravestone still.

“I don't know what that is,” he admits.

“It's where you draw squares and boxes and you throw a stone and you jump around,” says Marianne. “It's fun!”

He trembles.

It seems as if my younger self has read the situation just a tiny bit, and launches into further explanation. “Your daddy is round my house a lot, 'cause he works with my daddy, and Mama said I should play with you, b'cause Kirsten's mama doesn't let her out to play at sundown and I'm _bored._ ”

“O-oh.” He blinks some more.

“And the little boy who lives in the big block is weird and nasty, even though his parents are nice and give me food which is fun-shaped,” she goes on, “an' I asked the frogs in the pond if they wanted to play but they had im-port-unt things to do.” She crosses her arms. “ _But._ I'm only going to play hopscotch with you if you don't _cheat_ like everyone else here does. You have to stay on the ground when you're not hopping, otherwise it's not fair!”

Pierre looks at his feet (smaller than I'm used to) in a mild sense of wonder.

“Nobody wants to play with me.”

“I do!” she cries, and then she diverts the steady stare she has on him for a second. She comes back less loud. “Your mama thinks it would be a good idea too.”

His eyes widen even further, which I didn't actually think was possible. His mouth is a tiny line.

“She says it'll be good for you to make friends,” she announces cheerfully. “Do all mas say stuff like that? Mine does all the time. She says I should be friends with people and not be mean to them even if they don't have special ears like I do.”

“Special?” Both Pierre and I reach for our tragically normal ears.

“Don't worry if your hearing's not so good,” younger Marianne grins. “I can tell you what she's saying even though you can't hear her. She says hopscotch would be big fun.”

“Okay.” He's still clutching his ear.

“So what you do is,” she sidles over to him and sits herself down as casually as anything, “you take the chalk! And then you draw boxes and you fill 'em with numbers.”

“Wow!” Pierre seems genuinely impressed, and younger Marianne sounds genuinely proud of herself, so I gather neither of them have cottoned on that you can't draw with chalk on grass yet.

“Usually Mama does the numbers part, 'cause I haven't quite got the hang of 'em yet, but,” Marianne starts drawing exuberant circles in the air, “Mama's cooking at the moment so she can't do the numbers, so I'll say the numbers. Do you know numbers?”

“Not a lot of them,” Pierre says quietly.

“They go in _this_ order,” Marianne begins, her eyes lighting up. “One! Two! Three! Five! Four! Eight! Ten! Seven! Eleven! Fourteen! Two-teen! Fifty! Twenty-ten! Googolplex! A hundred! A hundred and twenteen! Nine!”

“What's _goo-goll-plex?_ ” asks Pierre.

“He's a person from the book Mama reads me every night,” Marianne grins. “He's very big. So I added him in there.”

“I want a story at night,” Pierre mumbles into the earth.

“We haven't even done all the numbers!” Marianne shrieks. “We've got three more numbers to do and then we'll have all of the numbers that there is.”

“Okay,” says Pierre.

In hindsight, despite what my school reports say, I've really undergone a huge leap in mathematical skill.

“The rest of the numbers,” Marianne says sagely, “are: eighty! Five thousand four hundred and three! And nineteen.”

“That's all of the numbers?” Pierre asks.

“Mama's going to be so proud of me when I tell her I got all of the numbers,” Marianne grins to herself.

“I didn't know you could just say all of the numbers.” Pierre is looking up at the sky now, and his eyes are glittering. “I thought that would be really hard.”

“It's not hard!” Marianne proclaims. “You just search inside your head. Then you'll find them!”

The grass starts to slip away from me under my feet. I turn to look at the sun and it's vanished. The dream is ending. The grave they sit by gets further and further away, until the two children are dots in differing shades of blue. And their talk gets quieter and quieter and the last thing I manage to hear before everything goes white is this:

_“Don't you like the number nineteen? Isn't it great?”_

 


	11. My Best Friend

The golden light is there again to pry my eyes open, sparkling on the ridges of the train windows; the traincar itself is flooded with an orange so pervading I can almost taste citrus. I have found myself again on a summer's evening. The only difference is that, unlike others of its ilk, on this summer's evening I've been shoved into a corner and tied up at my wrists and ankles so that I cannot move.

Should I have really expected anything more from Marion?

If I wasn't fronted with some more pressing concerns, I'd be very happy at the moment. It's me! I'm Marianne again! Not a foul phonic in sight! Yippee! Perhaps I would throw myself a little 'welcome back' party, with crisps and jelly and balloons, and maybe a juggler, or an accordionist. I can't decide. But then again I'm stuck and can't move an inch, so it's all fucking pointless.

My head is swimming. There's no ventilation anywhere in this coach and it feels like a greenhouse. My thighs are stuck to the floor through the holes in my stockings. I seem to have jumped straight from a rosy, childish reverie into a humid, sticky hell.

It's silent. I look to my right, down the train- there's nobody in sight. Just rows and rows of empty seats. I try and struggle out of the ropes, to no avail- they're only on my ankles and wrists, but they've been tied in some kind of clumsy labyrinthine knot that won't give to anything. I'm stuck slumping against the wall. I can just see the top of a hill out of the window, and nothing else.

So this is it, then. Fighting my way out of an obscure corner of my own mind to shove out an invader leagues more powerful than me- this is what that's amounted to. A completely preventable death rotting away on a train.

“Oh, Pierre.” I realise I'm saying this- it escapes my mouth without me thinking.

It's funny, but I miss him already. He was the only person to stick around, to try and help me. Where is he now?

“Marianne? Is that you?”

I just about jump out of my skin.

I'm a bit embarrassed that I took up fatalism before even looking to the left, because that's where Pierre happens to be.

He looks so much taller when I'm on the floor, even with his bad posture. His whole face seems heavy, and I have no idea how to diffuse the tension.

“Uh, sure is.” I give possibly the shakiest grin ever conceived. “Marianne's back, by popular demand.”

He clutches his hand to his chest, as though he's about to faint too, and a grin cracks its way across his face. The eye I can see wells up. “My god, it's really you.”

“Mhm.” My smile turns a bit desperate. “In the flesh. For real, this time.”

He collapses to his knees and throws his arms around me, drowning me in reams of curly brown hair. “I _missed_ you,” he half-sobs. “I mean, I'm- I'm so glad you're- when you- no, when Marion went, I-” He draws a deep, juddery breath and buries his head in my shoulder. “I thought I'd lost you.”

“You're not going to get rid of me that easily,” I tell him, and he makes a helpless squeaking noise. “It'll probably take a bit longer than that. We just have to wait until starvation kicks in, and _then_ I'm a goner.”

“Don't joke about things like that!” he wails, and then looks up. I nod at the binding on my ankles. “Oh. You weren't. Sorry, I'm a bit sleep-deprived at the moment, I completely forgot I did this...”

He gets up and starts picking at the knot, with an industriousness you only really see in things like beavers and students on the night before an exam. “It was in case Marion came back, you see,” he explains. “I'm sorry, it's not too painful, is it? Goodness, what _have_ I done with this thing here, it's impossible...” he frowns, and does something ineffectual with his fingernail.

I'm not really up to speed on correct damsel-in-distress etiquette, so I mostly just sit there as he scrabbles at my ankles like he's trying to defuse a bomb.

“I had a dream when Marion passed out, Pierre,” I decide to tell him, as a way of distracting myself from the axe and the diary which I've just noticed on the floor. “You were in it.”

“Oh?” Something on his face lights up. He finally manages to get somewhere with the knot, and my ankles feel a taste of liberty.

“I saw a younger version of myself running up the hill,” I begin, “through the cemetery. She was saying hello to all these nonexistent people, and then she found a younger version of you at the top... and oh god, it was embarrassing, you were really upset about something but she just kept blethering on about- what was it, hopscotch? And she didn't know how to count properly, and she acted like your mother was a part of the conversation even though-” I tail off. I'm in sensitive waters now.

He doesn't even wince. He just stares up at me, his eye the size of the moon. “That wasn't a dream you had.”

“What?” I don't think I was in an alternate dimension. He was a good kisser, but inducing a jump into another plane of existence is probably beyond even him.

“I remember it just as vividly as you do.” He gives a melancholy smile as he starts on my wrists. “We were five, I think. Honestly, don't talk about yourself like you were some kind of embarrassment. You were the first friend I ever had. Possibly the last, too.”

“Oh.” The light outside is dimming- but this revelation feels like a huge floodlight is shining into my eyes, seeping into my brain.

He laces the rope through his fingers, delicate as anything, and my wrists come free. “It's sad you don't seem to remember anything. I used to have so much fun with you. I don't think I ever got to experience that again.” He's overcast now, clouded over.

“Pierre,” I stutter out, “something's missing.”

This gets his attention. “I got that memory back, but- when I was there, I didn't even recognise myself at first. Most of my childhood is just- gone. Just years and years of empty space.”

“Really,” he breathes, moving to sit besides me. “Missing?” The next look on his face is like the lovechild of interest and dread.

“I didn't even know that I knew you before school,” I admit. “And now- well, I know I did, I know I do- but I couldn't possibly explain who you are to me beyond that tiny thing.”

“I see.” He nods, looking pensive, but his face has relaxed a lot. “Well, it doesn't matter. We'll get your memories back, Marianne, together. I don't know how we'll go about doing that, exactly, but we'll do it.”

Something warm fills me up, and I think it's the realisation that I really like the word 'we'.

“At least now I know,” I say, a smile snaking its way across my face, “why you stick around, and ask all your weird questions. You were looking out for me all along, weren't you, Pierre? In your own mysterious little way.”

“I wasn't very good at it, but you could say I was,” he professes, but he's smiling too. “Emily-Rose would scream at me for days if she thought I was directly interacting with someone she didn't like. Even so, Marianne, you're allowed to continue being annoyed at me, you know. I didn't exactly respect your boundaries.”

“Boundaries _nothing,_ ” I tell him. “You saved my life. Nobody else tried to save me from Marion. You could be my worst stalker with a collection of my hairs and I'd still be grateful.”

“I wish you'd have higher standards,” he sighs, resting his head against me. “But you're welcome.”

It stays like that for a little bit. He's very still and very quiet, and I try to be too, but there's an incessant rattling inside my chest. That small little area of contact we share is making my blood rush like it's late for a meeting.

“No, really,” I pipe up, “you only saw a fraction of what Marion did. Even after she took over my body I wasn't safe from her.”

He doesn't respond, but strokes my shoulder in a very comforting way, sort of like how Professor Lovejoy used to.

“I spent so long not knowing what was going on, what was happening,” I murmur. “When you two were fighting, I- she showed me visions, re-invented the things I saw, a thousand times. There were so many moments where I thought she'd killed you. And before that- oh, that little fox. He really _did_ die. Oh god, it was terrible- I could feel its bones twisting, and-” I have to bury my face in my hands. “I killed that helpless little animal.”

He pulls me over into a complete hug, resting my head against his chest. “You didn't do that.”

“I did- it was in my hands, and everything-”

“If somebody stole my sword and ran somebody else through with it, would you say I killed them?”

“Well, no- but it was my whole body, that's a bit different-”

“Different in the sense that you were never created specifically to kill and hurt, perhaps,” he sighs, “but otherwise, I don't think it is. You're Marianne. Marion killed, and she wore you to do it.”

“I suppose so,” I sniff. I'm used to being considered lesser than everyone else, but I never thought I'd get reduced to an item of clothing before. Despite this, I can't cry. My facial muscles are locking down with the tenacity of iron suspension rigs, refusing to let anything weaken.

“I feel like I should have done something sooner,” he sighs again, gazing at the ceiling. “It shouldn't have taken me so long to realise that you had stopped being yourself. By the time your eyes went red it was obvious, but it was far too late by then.”

“Don't blame yourself.” The rest of me has melted into a puddle of inferior clothing choices into his lap. “I forget who Marianne is sometimes, too.”

“Ah, but you said you have memories missing, so it's understandable,” he says. “I've seen you, Marianne. You rent out just as many books from the library as I do, if not more; Professor Lovejoy loves you like she would her own daughter, and mushrooms are among your favourite foods. Correct?”

Sometimes at Drysdell's they'd serve roasted mushrooms as a meal, with rosemary and fancy salt and melted butter. I try not to drool when I nod.

“There we are,” he smiles, “those are three unmistakable aspects of Marianne.”

He's awfully pretty. This is not news to me- I've been able to acknowledge this in the past, albeit begrudgingly, but today he's the most radiant sleep-deprived person I've ever seen. His pale skin is marble, and the feeble glimmer in his eyes is moonlight through a dark cloud. It's not really a thing to call boys 'beautiful', but he is. I've certainly been able to recognise that before, but I've never been able to appreciate it.

“Marianne sounds nice,” I say.

“ _You_ are nice,” he corrects me, tightening the hug, “and I like you very much.”

This sentence is a stranger to me and words aren't there to help me reply. A very unfamiliar kind of heat is flooding through my face, and the only comfort is that he's gone a bit red as well.

“Why are you so kind to me?” is what I manage to stammer out.

“Why wouldn't I be?” is his response, but somewhere among his softness his spine straightens and his brow furrows.

This alone is enough to introduce a fatal amount of dread into my bloodstream.

“What's wrong?” I ask him.

It's not a thing people do, right? They don't just tell people they like them and then immediately remember why they don't?

He teeters on the edge of a response for what seems to be about a quarter of an hour, but is actually about thirty seconds, and my heart takes an agonising drop.

“There was something I forgot to tell you,” he responds after a while.

Somehow, even though it's not the _“actually, I just remembered you're a filthy human being and I want nothing to do with you”_ response I initially feared, the gravelly tone of his voice is making me shiver.

“While we've been out,” he says, his voice only a few steps above a whisper, “something happened to Drysdell's. And, well, it's... no more.”

“No more? What do you mean?” This is already weird. _Things_ don't just _happen_ to Master Drysdell's Preternatural Arts Comprehensive- it just sits there being bourgeois in the face of everything the non-overpriveliged world tries to throw at it, like someone took the concept of status quo and built a stately mansion with it.

“My sources on this are limited-” he points feebly to the newspaper folded in his former seat- “but when we were with Greg this morning, some people got into the building- what sort of people, I have no idea, but they attacked the whole school, and apparently everyone's been kidnapped and taken off somewhere. The rest of the inhabitants of the village weren't so lucky, either.”

“Shit.” It's the only coherent word I can say.

“I'm sorry I forgot to tell you.” His lip trembles as it talks. “I was so happy you came back, it just... fell out of my mind.”

“No, no, that's alright.” There's no shortage of words, but somehow I'm still struggling to add them all up, and my tongue reels things off automatically. “It's not you- I mean, why would I hold it against you? Someone kidnapped our entire school. Someone kidnapped... well, _kids._ I know I hated everyone at Drysdells, but not _that_ much.”

“It really doesn't seem real, but I think it is,” he mutters. “I mean- due to some... circumstances, I'm not allowed to leave the premises without notifying someone, and if I was gone for this long they'd have ways of tracking me down and bringing me back. And there's been nobody.”

My lungs feel like paper bags. Everyone. Everyone save for me, Pierre, Juniper and Theodore- possibly Professor Lovejoy, wherever she went- and god knows who else, gone.

“I just didn't know what to do,” he says, his eye welling up. “Everything just seemed so awful- there was Marion, and then Theodore and Arlene came after us, and this whole time, that raid- you coming back was the only good thing to happen. And now we're both stuck on a train.”

“Stuck?” I ask. “Is there no way of getting out, then?”

“The doors are locked,” he sniffs.

I tut, shaking my head, and get up. I take the axe- all the while trying not to notice how it feels- and I shatter the adjacent window to us with extreme prejudice.

He looks up at me in amazement and mild fear. “Juvenile delinquency has its perks,” I explain.

A single tear escapes down his face as he gives the tiniest of laughs. “I suppose that's at least one bad thing eliminated.”

“Smashed, to be precise,” I say. “That won't be the end of it. We'll get to the bottom of this mess.”

“But how?” It's like I've proposed that we do a light jog to the nearest moon.

“Well, I don't know,” I shrug, “but the first thing we can do is deal with this stuck train. I know we're in the middle of nowhere at the moment, but there might be someone nearby with a transmitter we can use to contact someone who can do something about it. Then- I don't know. We go to Greenbough and scope out what actually happened. And from then on we can probably just improvise.”

“I missed you so much, Marianne,” he murmurs, cuddling his hand to his chest again in absence of me. “I'd be completely useless in this situation without you.”

“Don't worry, smashing windows is a skill you can easily pick up,” I tell him. “Really, don't beat yourself up about it, Pierre. You might just have to deal with anything that wants to kill me, though, considering you have a sword and magic skills and all.”

“But that goes without saying!” He's reanimated all of a sudden, jumping to his feet and clinging to my shoulder. “You don't need to worry about a thing, Marianne. Nothing will hurt you from here on. I'll personally see to it.”

“And you'll be okay too?” I ask, trying to smile.

“I'll be fine,” he says, returning my attempt much more warmly. “I'll be damned if I let something like Marion happen again. You have my word.”

I pick up the diary and hand his sword to him. I decide after a while to leave the axe. Something I just remembered stops me before I go to the window.

“Are you alright, Marianne?” Pierre asks. “You've stopped.”

“Well, I was just thinking,” I say.

“Thinking of what?”

“I have it on reasonable authority that Marion's not going to come back on her own, since I've got her in the subconscious equivalent of a headlock right now,” I say, posing my finger against my face, “ _buuuuuut._ ”

“But what?”

“If I pretended to be possessed- I dunno, screamed a bit, flailed around some, enough to disturb people without actually causing any serious damage- would you ignore the fact that I was faking and give me one of your kisses again?”

I almost forget I'm not a magician for a second, because this remark turns a pale human boy into an incredible approximation of a tomato.

 


	12. The Trouble with Blood

Living in a tiny village really can limit your perception of what the rest of your country is actually like. For example, I never knew there was so bloody _much_ of it. We're exhausted by the time we find a tiny little church nestled amongst some pines.

“What's a little church doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere?” I ask Pierre, as if he would know.

“I'm not really sure,” he says, eyeing it up and down. “But it has to serve a purpose, no? It's missing a door.”

It is, though I didn't notice before. The church just looks like a normal church, made out of stones and mortar with a spire and stained-glass windows- so I didn't really think to look at it that hard. Pierre, however, examines it very intently. From another angle, I realise he's hiding part of his face behind his shirt collar. I'm not sure if he really needs much help in the facial obfuscation department.

...Mother of mercy, is he _still_ blushing?

“Perhaps we should go in and find out,” I tell him pointedly.

“What? Oh, right, yes. Of course. That was what we came here to do, wasn't it?”

I verge on telling him no, we actually just came here to get help for the train, but he waltzes right in through the opening in a flurry of gorgeous hair and a mild excess of fabric before I can. He's gone in seconds. I have to remind myself that this was the boy whom nearly everyone at Drysdell's crushed on because they thought he was cool and refined before I follow him in.

This becomes necessary again in the following few moments when I crash straight into his back.

Like, really? That old prank of stopping cold in your tracks so the people behind you bump right into you? There's not a lot I pretend to know about Pierre, but I at _least_ thought he was above that one-

“Marianne, look,” he murmurs, the full-on collision seemingly just waking him out of a trance. “This is all so... odd.”

I walk next to him and survey our new surroundings and, well, he's not wrong. I can't tell if this church is just a lot bigger on the inside or if the fact that I've never witnessed a group of frozen suits of armour in battle stances tearing apart a church before is skewing my depth perception. The seats are all in disarray, books have been thrown about, the lectern has been snapped in half and there's a pigeon feather floating around in the font. Like a sad little boat. Regardless, there are no pigeons here, or people.

“Well, either religious practises have changed since I last read up on them,” I say, “or we just mistook a modern art piece for a church.”

He starts to pace around, his leather shoes making tiny murmurs on the floor. Occasionally he moves to inspect a particularly disheveled chair, or pick up a book which is about fifteen feet away from where all the other books are.

“It seems all we have now are more questions,” he sighs, a bit sadly.

“We do, don't we?” I say, looking up at the statues. “Like, modern art usually has a meaning, right? What does this mean? Are the suits of armour, like... military symbolism? And we're in a church, so- wow. Definitely aiming for controversy here. Hmm. Do you think the books factor into it?”

The only indication that he's listening to me is that occasionally his ear will make little twitches as I talk. It's kind of cute, actually. I start to pace around too.

“I mean, Marion did something this morning,” I start to tell him. “Arlene started talking about her baby brother, right, and Marion being Marion wanted to meet him, and then it turns out Arlene's younger brother isn't really a brother at all- though they denied being a sister, too- and Merrowlake is actually a town with a really orthodox religious regime, and this sibling- Imogen, they were called- wanted to rise up against it. So, uh, maybe Imogen did this.”

“Do you think so?” he asks, his one visible eyebrow _very_ visibly raised.

“Well, no,” I sigh, “but it's the only thing I can come up with.”

“To tell you the truth,” he says, “I only pretend to understand modern art. I haven't a clue what's gone on here, either.”

“Don't worry about it, it never made my grades any higher,” I say. “But really, seriously, what kind of shitfest did we just walk into?”

“Grades were never intended to work out your true intelligence,” he chides me, with an overtone of reassurance. “And I have no idea.”

“You know what's going to happen, right?” I ask. “We came in here for the train because we needed help, but here's a total mess, so we're going to have to go somewhere _else_ to ask for help about here so we can ask for help with the train. And the next place we go will probably be even weirder.”

“That sounds like the worst case scenario,” he says, “which means, in our situation, it's entirely plausible.”

“I think we should just go back out again and pretend we never saw this so we don't lose any time,” I tell him, “don't you?”

“In the grand scheme of things, that's probably the better idea,” he says. “Let's go.”

“Let's be a dynamic detective partnership another time,” I agree, and we both march out in unison.

Then we both trip over something in unison.

Whatever it is, it's long and soft and heavy, and sends us both on a one-way trip to the cold, hard ground. (This is actually quite refreshing, since I spent so much time stuck to the floor on the train, but I don't know if it would be weird to point that out.)

“Marianne!” Pierre exclaims, struggling to his feet. “Are you alright?”

“You fell too,” I point out, “are _you_ alright?”

“I'm fine,” he frowns, “but are you?”

“I'm alright,” I tell him as he helps me up. “It was just a tiny fall, Pierre, you don't need to worry.”

“Oh, good,” he beams. “It seems we just tripped over- a- real- human- body?”

He's just as confused as I am as he turns around. There's a girl on the floor. Like, a legitimate, actual girl, and I don't think she even noticed that we tripped over her, because she's incredibly unconscious.

“Marianne, do you-” he squints- “ _recognise_ her, or am I imagining things?”

Now that he mentions it, I swear I've seen a girl with this percentage of leg at Drysdell's before. “She's familiar.”

He crouches down and rolls her over to reveal her incredibly unconscious face. His expression stunts as though smacked. The plot has thickened as if we've poured a whole box of gravy granules into it.

“I definitely recognise her,” he frowns, “that's Amity Reilly.”

“Ah, so that's what her name is!” Now that I've seen her face I recognise her, because I tended to get a death-glare from her on the regular. She never gave me her business card though. “How do you know her, Pierre?”

“One time she threw a book at my face and knocked me out for twelve hours,” he says. “What's she doing here, though? And why is she unconscious?”

“She might've been so shocked by the divisiveness of the message this art piece is trying to spread that she fainted,” I say, “or it might have something to do with that bloody massive bruise on the side of her head.” I point to a raging purple stormcloud that, to be honest, clashes horribly with her hair colour.

“Ah.” He looks up. “Marianne, I'm starting to think that these statues aren't just statues.”

“No, I think you're right,” I say. “This is suspicious. And having this many statues in one place would probably be really expensive.”

They're all frozen in varying battle-stances, some moving in for a punch, some not doing much at all except moving out of the way for another one- then I realise that one is holding something. It looks a bit like a dark-green giant-statue-sized handkerchief.

I move a bit closer and realise I probably owe a massive apology to Juniper.

“Hey, Pierre,” I say, my voice taking a massive drop, “you might want to look at what I just found.”

“Heavens, how much more ambiguity must we be put through today?” he sighs, walking over. However, he's instantly stunned when he looks up at the dangling cardigan. “That's Juniper's.”

“She's been here,” I tell him. “I've never seen her without that cardigan on, she made it herself. She even sleeps in it sometimes.” A proper noun-worthy Horrible Thought comes to me, which I immediately push away.

“What do we do?” Pierre asks, the wind falling out of his voice. Doing a little run-up, he makes an impressive jump and just barely snatches the cardigan out of the big metal hand. His gaze starts to tremble with worry as he runs his fingers over the lace collar. “This, and... well, we can't just leave somebody we know here, can we?”

“Well, we can at least keep the cardigan,” I state, matter-of-factly. “She'll probably want it back. As for Amity Reilly, uh... damn. It's a shame Marion was so rude to Greg, because we could use a healer.”

“Greg!” He positively illuminates. “Of course. We traded addresses, so I could just teleport us all there and we won't have to go through Merrowlake.” He turns to me also, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Don't you worry about what Marion did. I'll explain everything. Greg was very understanding, so I'm sure he won't take it personally.”

“Oh, that's good.” I can feel part of the huge iceberg of dread encrusted around my lungs melting away. “At least we won't have to go through Merrowlake, then. I'll be honest, from what I saw, it looked really creepy.”

“Wasn't it just?” he sighs, ruefully. “Just stay here and hold on tight, Marianne. And please don't make any sudden movements, okay? That could... well, _bad_ things have come out of doing that.” He runs over and slings Amity's immobile body over his shoulder, and with his free arm, grips my hand very tightly.

“Whatever you say,” I say, as innocuous as possible.

 

Everything goes black for a second and every part of me lurches wildly. My throat tightens and my skull feels like a fish-bowl. It's as if I've fallen head-first from a fence.

When I open my eyes again there's Pierre, casual as ever with Amity slung over his shoulder. The dusty air of the church has been replaced by the mien of pine trees and rivers. Greg's cabin waits in front of us patiently.

“That was quite a good landing,” Pierre announces, cheerful as anything. “When I've tried to teleport before I usually end up in a tree or a bush.”

“Is it normal to feel like you've been kicked in the head afterwards?” I ask, trying not to fall over my own feet.

“I imagine it could be if you're unused to it,” he replies. “Just steady yourself for a second, Marianne. We'll go in when you're ready.”

“Nah, it's alright,” I tell him. “You go in and I'll catch up.”

There are imprints of bare feet in the dirt track below. They're not very big- they couldn't be much bigger than my own. I look back up to Pierre, who hasn't said a thing or moved an inch. He looks hesitantly at the cabin, as if it's a giant spider he's not sure if he wants to apprehend.

There aren't any lights on. The door is cracked open slightly, although it gives no indication as to what's inside. Just a long triangle of darkness.

“You think he's in?” I ask. “It doesn't look like he is.”

“I have a bad feeling,” Pierre mutters into his shirt collar.

All it takes is one look at his pale face and shaking hand to persuade me to give him a break. “I'll check it out,” I tell him.

He makes no move to stop me, but flashes a desperate look. I pry open the door some, but not much light enters the dingy little room. It's hard to make anything out. I try to open the door fully, but it bashes into something like a draught excluder, and won't move any more.

I walk in and find a light switch, and before I've even fully realised what's blocking the door I scream.

Pierre jumps into action behind me. “Marianne? What's wrong?”

The scream is ringing through my brain, doubling up on itself, and I automatically blurt it out- _“it's not me you should worry about”_.

He pushes me aside gently only to drop Amity completely non-gently. Unlike me, he doesn't scream- he just lets out an incredibly small noise, like a whimper, and recoils.

After the initial shock, we both just shake and stare at Greg's body on the floor. A great, messy gash that's been made in his abdomen stares back at us, dribbling no small quantity of blood.  His ornate clothes are all stained crimson, and there are pools collecting in places that glisten slightly.  His eyes aren't quite shut; his mouth lolls slightly open.  My nausea almost overrides my shock.  Almost.

“Who did this?” Pierre asks the empty air.

He trembles violently, and it looks like he's about to pass out like last night, so I hold him around the waist. I'm not shaking as much- I'm pulsing. For all of the fear struck into me, it does not feel like a fear of the unknown. As much as I didn't expect to find Greg here like this, somehow it doesn't feel completely random.

A memory of Marion's occurs to me.

The snapping of the twigs this morning. She made a point of not paying any attention to it, but in my head it plays out in agonisingly slow motion, to the point where I feel each individual one breaking- like someone running past.

Then later Arlene fell out of a tree covered in blood.

“That _bitch_ ,” I growl, accidentally gripping Pierre a bit too hard. “It's all so obvious now- it was there from the beginning, even- she's the _exact_ person who would like casual murder, isn't she?”

“What are you talking about?” Pierre asks me, sounding terrified.

“Arlene!” I cry. “She did this. It had to have been her. Think about it- this morning, when there were all those noises of twigs snapping, then a few moments later Arlene fell out of a tree with her hands covered in blood...”

“But Arlene was covered in blood because she was-” he pauses- “no, of course she wasn't. That's impossible.”

“She murdered Greg,” I tell him, and I realise my eyes are burning. “She didn't even try to kidnap him, like with us, she just- fucking _killed_ him.”

We both stand there for another couple of minutes. Something creaks, like the door or the wind. I have to take several deep breaths, because there's nobody here I can reasonably take revenge on; Pierre suppresses several sobs. The blood shimmers in the dying light.

Then I realise there's no wind, and the door is still in its place.

The noise is Greg.

“S'alright, guys, I'm...”

He raises an arm and I almost scream a second time. Pierre yelps in a way that knocks all the air out of his lungs, and I narrowly have to dart to catch him before he meets the same fate as Amity.

“I'm alright, guys, just... need some help...” His foot starts to twitch in its boot, back and forth like a metronome.

“You're alive?” I accidentally yell at him.

“Medicine cupboard upstairs,” he manages, “in a red bottle- blue lid-”

Pierre ricochets out of my arms and into the house, up the stairs- he's back in seconds with a bottle that fits the description. We kneel besides Greg on what bare patches of floorboard we can find- difficult at first, as there's a large soaked patch surrounding him like an aura.

“That's the one,” he grins shakily. “Just- three drops, straight in there-”

Pierre makes an attempt at the bottle but his fingers skitter and dance around the lid; I take over for him and wrench it open. There's a dropper inside, which I take and press three times as instructed straight into the gash in his chest. Immediately a kind of angry fizzing starts, like an experiment in potion-making about to go horribly wrong, but Greg gives me a thumbs-up as if the ensuing pulsating and rippling of his skin is some kind of really great thing. Soon his shimmering pink insides are all back to normal, like a textbook illustration except not quite so dry, and his skin starts knitting itself back over in pale layers.

Probably a good thing I haven't eaten in a while.

Greg grins, wincing a bit as he sits up in a pool of his own blood. "Thanks, guys, you're lifesavers," he says. "I was almost a goner there."

"No kidding," I say lowly.

I look over to Pierre, and his expression is one of complete unadulterated horror. He seems to have gone a very long time without blinking. Just to make sure, I reach over and give his hand a reassuring squeeze- or at least, as reassuring as I can manage to be at the moment.

“Oh yeah, I never explained it to you, did I?” Greg, I have to admit, is being _really_ blasé about the situation, and it's unnerving me. “That was my magic. It thrives off of social contact, being around friends, that kind of thing. So I can heal people, and equally I can regenerate- sort of. I could have died otherwise.”

There is not a thing available for me to say. Pierre, though, has relaxed a little bit, and nods.

“It really was a good thing you guys came along, because I was at the end of my rope,” Greg says, with a chuckle. “Being alone really drains me, y'know?”

“Greg, if you don't mind me asking,” Pierre begins lowly, “just how did that happen?”

“Shortly after you guys left, there was a knock at the door,” he shrugs, full of air. “I thought it was you guys, you see, since I noticed you left some bags here- but it was some girl with an axe. She didn't even say anything, it was just- _thwack_.” He makes an emphatic torso-attack gesture with his hands.

“Oh, right, the bags,” I mutter, and then my grip on the situation takes hold. “Arlene! I knew it was her, it _had_ to be! What does she even want from you? Why would she _do_ something like that?”

I already know why she would- because she's a murderous psychopath- but I'd appreciate another opinion, because I already hate humanity enough as it is.

“I'm not sure, really,” he said. “Arlene- was that her name? It rings a bell. Even so, I think she just wanted me dead. Not sure why. I mean, there's no way the Reverend and his mob could find me all the way-”

He stops stone-cold in the middle of his sentence.

“Sooooo, _anyway._ ” He starts a completely new one instead, rolling the words around his mouth very decisively. “What brings you two back here? And what happened to the other two? There was Juniper, wasn't there, and that kinda creepy one- what was his name? Thomas?”

“That's exactly what his name was,” I cut Pierre off, as I notice him raising his hand to correct him. “And, um, we sorta needed your help with making an unconscious person not-unconscious, but it's okay. You did just completely regenerate from a fuckoff-big axe wound, anyway.”

“Of course I can help,” he refutes. “Really, that thing was nothing, I'm over it now. So, uh...” he looks around- “Where _is_ the person?”

I look around too, and Amity's not there.

“Sorry,” Pierre murmurs, standing up. “I just remembered I left her outside.”

He leaves and comes back in, half-holding and half-dragging Amity, like some kind of incredibly reluctant human wheelbarrow. He sets her down on the floor, and the blood makes it look like a successful crime scene.

“Definitely unconscious,” Greg asserts, giving her doughy face a prod. “She'll be okay, though. Uh- Marianne? We'll need a glass of water for the next bit.”

Something clicks for a minute. There was something strange about that sentence, something hiding in plain sight, and I kind of sit there for a minute lolling with wonder.

“Uh,” Greg scratches the back of his head, “Marianne _was_ your name, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That's exactly what my name is.”

I look at Pierre and he's completely recovered from being horrified. He smiles at me as if to say, _see?_

I get up and go over to the little kitchen in the corner. The tap is a bit stiff, and there's rust collecting round the corners, so I have to give it a hearty punch to get any water out. Taking a glass, I fill it up and bring it over to Greg. I expect I'm about to lay witness to some kind of other incredible miracle, but I'm a bit apathetic to its subject, so I kind of have to force any sort of enthusiasm.

“It's important we get this right,” says Greg. He sizes up the glass, sizes up Amity Reilly, and then chucks its contents all over her head.

“Seriously?” I ask.

Milliseconds later, though, she springs back to life. Her eyes don't even open first- she jolts into sitting up, her spine a flawless ninety degrees, and then when finally she opens her eyes and sees me there she brings her best barn owl impression to the table.

“ _SkreeeeeEEEEEEeeeee!”_ I make a mental note to check Greg's water quality later, because it seems we've just performed an exorcism.

“You- _you!!!_ ” She points an accusatory finger that only just grazes the tip of my nose, which I get is supposed to be threatening, but it's not really working. “You, Marion, you un-magical double chicken biscuit, you ugly homeless boyfriend-stealing tramp, you _slag,_ where am I? I always knew you were in a cult! If you think you can sacrifice _me,_ you've got another thing coming- I'll fly a book into your face- it won't even be a _good_ book!-”

Behind her, Greg clears his throat quietly. Pierre clears his throat less quietly.

I also make a note to find out if some spells can be performed via coughing. Amity's eyebrows perform a sort of interpretive dance that takes them from being furrowed lividly at me to rocketing halfway up her forehead, and she whips around.

“Pierre!” she exclaims, filled with delight all of a sudden. “Oh, I'm so glad you're here! I was so alone, and scared, and then Marion was there, and-”

“First of all, her name is Marianne.” Only having one eye visible most of the time does not, as it turns out, soften the glare he has suddenly. “Secondly, there really is no need to make a scene. She helped you.”

“Anyone wanna explain what's going on here?” Greg asks, scratching the back of his head again with an increased ferocity. “Like, uh...”

Both me and Pierre pause to speak, but Amity overtakes us both. “I almost got kidnapped in the raid! And then I ran to the church to escape! And Juniper was there! And then the big things were there! And now I'm here!”

“Raids?” Greg screws his face up. “We're ages away from Lacrimosa, and I'd definitely know if you went to Bagnold's- for one thing, it's an all-boy school.”

“There was a raid on Drysdell's just this morning,” Pierre mutters, despondent.

“Shit, that bites.” Greg, understandably, ignores Amity and turns to Pierre. His voice drops, and his dark eyes take on a sad glimmer, like buttons. “I'm... I'm sorry, man. It's only been a couple of weeks since they raided Bagnold's, too. I suppose I got lucky like you guys, since I was still out here. This world...”

“How did you know about the raid on Bagnold's?” I ask him, breaking his gaze away from Pierre for a second. “I mean, I didn't know there were raids at all until Pierre told me about the Drysdell's one earlier. We even went through Merrowlake earlier, and you wouldn't have thought someone had ransacked a magic academy.”

“Like I said, they raided Lacrimosa School of Arts a while ago,” Greg shrugs. “A couple of months ago, I think? Nobody over there suspects a thing either. The people who stationed me here have been trying to find out more about it- there's been rumours of a big press conspiracy, cover-ups, the whole thing. Something shadowy. Something terrifying.”

“It was scary when the windows smashed in the middle of breakfast,” Amity chimes in.

“A genocide, basically,” Pierre sighs. “Apparently there were a select few survivors at Drysdell's, because of-” suddenly, he darts a look at me and closes his mouth.

“What?” I ask.

Greg takes it upon himself to continue. “There have been small groups of survivors at both Bagnold's and Lacrimosa. One of the people who put me here is responsible. Somewhere between the first attack and the part where they all get taken away to... wherever, he's been able to intercept the teleportation and get some people out. He hasn't told me who he's saved, though. And I'd appreciate it.”

“Is there someone you want to know about?” I ask. I'm not sure why I'm asking, because there's nothing I can do about it.

“Someone I love,” Greg mutters, and his voice straddles the line between gravelly and wobbly. “Someone I love very much.”

Pierre nods with a sad sympathy, and Amity sits there looking gormless.

The only thing I can think to fill this sad silence in with is another question- “Greg, who put you here? And who saved those people?”

“Two people put me here, like I said,” he murmurs. “One of them, a woman teacher, Calliope, I think she's called. She found me on the streets one day, and told me she could help me fulfil a purpose. The other is a man. He's the brother of Lord Gawain, the guy apparently behind all these killings, and he used to advise the king, too. His name is Ezekiel Brockett.”

I've seen a number of horrors this afternoon, and I'm even sitting next to a pool of blood.

Ironically, though, my own surname is the thing that makes me scream the loudest.

 


	13. The Thieves

“I can't believe it,” I mutter, halfway into Pierre's arm and halfway into the open air. “The killer is my family. Can't I go back to not having any?”

“Marianne, it doesn't mean anything.” He seems serene as ever, save a slight affectation in his voice. “Please, don't be upset. There's none of that kind of evil in you, I know it. That's why Marion was a shock.”

“Yeah?” This topic of conversation is forcing me to think about things like good and evil which I've never really thought about in detail before, and blowing the dust off of all those old thoughts is giving me a bit of a headache. That, or it was the coffee Greg gave me before we all left for Greenbough.

“Of course.” I wish I could speak with his kind of confidence.

“Pierre, am I good?” I ask. “Good as in not bad? Am I doing the right thing?”

“Of course you are,” he says, smiling. “At the very least, we're doing the closest we have to the right thing at the moment. How could you spend a whole day with people like Arlene and Theodore and still question your morality?”

He has a point, and it's soothing to stroll along with him behind Greg and Amity, but there's still this unshakable discomfort in my stomach which is trying to make me stop walking. “Pierre, I thought my dad was dead.”

“Dead?” he echoes. The handle of his sword catches a ray of early moonlight, and glints.

“I can't even remember the last time I saw him,” I murmur. “He pays for my Drysdell's stuff through his bank account, not to mention all Cassiopia's garbage, but there was nothing to suggest there was a real, physical person behind it. I thought- I thought he went the same way as my mother. I thought my parents had been murdered, actually. But here he is. Alive and well.”

“I've heard things about this _Cassiopia_ ,” he says, pronouncing each syllable of her name like it's some sort of dreadful demonic invocation. “Is what I hear true, Marianne? That she's... bad to you? The reason you've been wearing the same clothes since you joined?”

“That's putting it lightly,” I tell him. “The clothes are her most minor offence, and I hate my clothes with every fiber of my being.”

He reaches down and clutches my hand very tightly. “Your father is no real father if he leaves you with her.” His voice has a sort of anger to it, not like on the train or with Amity earlier, something different. “Should we ever cross paths with him, I think I'll need to have a word. Quite a few words, actually.”

“I'm not mad at him,” I say. By some mistake, my voice doesn't fully make it out of my throat, and it comes out as a little whisper, half a person.

“You're not?” he almost retorts. “Why wouldn't you be?”

“I'm usually too busy wondering to be mad.  Because, you see- I just wonder if he still loves me.”

 

Greg eventually leads us onto a familiar-looking path. I say familiar- everything looks the same at this time of night. The light hasn't yet died but is probably ruminating over its last will and testament. We see nothing of mystical spirits or fairies or even krakens, or, at least, I don't. The only breaks in the scenery are different types of plants that crop up along the way. At one point we cross a patch of nettles, but Pierre refuses when I offer him one to eat.

Then the trees break away from us and we're all thrust out into the wide open all of a sudden.

I think I probably had an easier time recognising the village when it was an illusion of ten years ago inside my head. The sky feels even further up than usual, as if it's leaving us to deal with this business and wants no part in it. A cold breeze runs straight through me. This is all so very, very wrong.

Amity has switched in as leader now. Her lips, for a change, are pressed shut, and her legs quiver as she runs, occasionally knocking together at the knees. Greg hangs behind trotting at a leisurely pace, though he looks slightly concerned. I know what I'll see if I look at Pierre, so I just hold his hand instead.

Any kind of noise would be nice. The houses we walk past- houses I know, or knew- look more like models or sculptures than real buildings we could possibly enter. More than anything, the air is lacking a familiar presence, and as we advance further up that well-trodden path there's none of that familiar shadow that used to glare at the ground in its stately kind of way.

We come across Drysdell's- or at least, the shitload of rubble that remains of it.

Pierre murmurs something tiny, barely audible: _“no.”_ I offer my shoulder to him, which he promptly buries his head in.

“They wrecked it,” says Amity, quaking. “They just completely wrecked it.”

I can't be distraught with them, I hated the place too much. Somehow even as a hillside of wreckage it still keeps its intimidating mien. It's like a drawing in a marine biology book: me, a plankton, in the open mouth of Drysdell's, a fish, which swims gleefully in the maw of a shark. _Always a bigger fish_. My biggest critic is now a pile of bricks and mortar, occasionally punctuated by blisters of broken glass.

“They didn't do this to Bagnold's,” Greg says, his voice hollow with shock. “I would have- I would have _known_. Right?”

Pierre, without warning, jerks his head away from my shoulder. “We need to check the village.” He sounds almost mechanical.

 

We try the tailor's first, as it's closer. Greg raps on the door to the tradesmen's entrance, and I yell- _“Mrs Carroll! Mrs Carroll, are you in there? It's me, Marianne- I need to talk to you about Juniper-”_ but there's no response, not even when I holler at the top of my lungs, not even when Greg tries to bust the door down.

We try Theodore's house next. Surprisingly, we find that the back door's open. An odd, fleshy aroma cruises out of it, just subtle enough to take us by surprise but just noxious enough to keep us from going in. It's silent just like everywhere else; Greg decides to storm it in the end, having no reason to be apprehensive about slightly-open doors. We lose him in the darkness for a couple of minutes, and he comes back out looking unsatisfied.

“Too dark,” he says. “Nobody's in there, anyway. Just an open locker.”

We try the gates of the Gilder Estate too, but they just don't want to open for us.

 

It's when we're wandering through the green that Pierre springs back to life again, thunderstruck. “I just remembered something important-” he says it so quickly I have to take a moment to figure out what the words actually are- “Marianne, come with me.”

In seconds he has my wrist, and the various noises of confusion made by Greg and Amity are drowned out by the sounds of his running, of grass whispering, and twigs snapping.

“Pierre, what are you doing?” I ask him, between breaths.

“I remembered something important,” he responds.

“Well, yeah, I know _that_.” He doesn't even turn around to make eye contact with me. “I mean _what_ did you remember, where are we going, why not Greg and Amity-”

I have to stop talking for a minute. There are more noises, and I'm not sure if the amount of noise we're making is enough to account for all of it. We're entering the forest on the border of the village again, but it seems like for every single branch that breaks under my feet several more break too. Pierre skids to a halt before I can notice anything else.

He's brought me to a house; it's quite a nice house, too. It looks to be the same size as Cassiopia's, maybe with fewer rooms. There's a little ornamental garden surrounding it, and I have to be careful in my inertia not to crush a little rose-shrub beneath my gargantuan feet.

Pierre only takes a couple of seconds to catch his breath before he starts pummeling the door like a madman. “Nanna!” he cries out. “Nanna, are you in? It's Pierre! Open the door!”

He steps back and the same silence as all those other times washes over us again.

“This is bad,” he murmurs. “This is extremely bad.”

“Pierre, mind telling me what this is all about?” I wince mid-sentence, because I swear I hear more twigs snapping.

“I trust you, Marianne, so I'll tell you.” His hands are tangled into a nervous skein of knuckles and nails. “Nobody, really, is meant to know this, but it's about Emily-Rose.”

“Right.” Her name has never really been a catalyst for optimism, and still isn't.

“She's not who she says she is, and in a way, neither am I.” He coughs. “How to put this?- she's not my cousin. We're not family. I'm in line to be head of the Royal Guard. So she's here, in Greenbough.”

“So- wait-” I swear I can feel his words flying straight over my head. “Head of the royal guard is a hereditary position? We _have_ a royal family?”

“That's not what I was getting at!” he cries abruptly, taking me by the shoulder. “You see- this soul-stealing thing has probably been going on for a long time, longer than we think- the royal family have been targeted by them from the start. And Emily-Rose is- she's-”

“Oh no.” Things are starting to make sense now, and I really wish they wouldn't.

He clears his throat again. “Emily-Rose is a princess who was annexed here for her protection. I was stationed to watch her. There's a strong likelihood that she's been taken too, and if she has, the consequences will be... dire.”

Gawain's my uncle, my father's still alive, Drysdell's is wrecked, Emily-Rose is a princess. What next, is Juniper an extraterrestrial returning to her home planet?

“What do they want Emily-Rose for?” Now probably isn't the time to bring up the popular theory that she's completely and utterly soulless, so I don't.

“Have you heard the legend that the royal family were chosen by the gods?”

“We have gods too?”

“Never mind. Anyway, that means the royal family tend to have souls that are more... say, valuable than yours or mine. It doesn't mean they're any better as people, of course-” he makes way for a tiny laugh- “but they have potential for huge power. That, I think, must be what this Gawain is after.”

I'm not really sure what to say next, but the opportunity to reply is snatched from underneath me at the last minute when several more twigs snap. Then we hear what's probably the equivalent of a tree being chopped down, and a huge light blinks on from behind us.

“Clever boy.”

I try to turn and look at the light, but it's no use. My head turns to an iron weight on my neck. Little blue and green specters of nothing flash in and out of my vision, and I can only just make out the very vague shape of a woman between the darkness and the light. She's surrounded by a forest, but it's made of metal, not trees.

“The princess, hm? We were wondering who she was. Emily-Rose, did you say? I'll make a note of it.”

The more I look at the light the more faculties I lose. My knees are next to go. Pierre seemingly notices, moving to grab me before I drop to the floor, but his eye is pinned on this woman.

It's only a black shape in a scene that has a lot of black in it, but when I realise she's pointing a large gun at us, my heart starts to heave.

“We've got lots of teenage girls now,” says the woman, smiling, “so this Emily-Rose should be among them, I think. And our output from that will be so great that I needn't bother capturing you two. No, killing you both ought to be fine.”

There is not an inch of mercy in her words. It's her voice, her appearance- the more of the woman I take in the worse I get.

“Don't hurt her,” I hear Pierre saying, reaching for his sword- “don't you _dare._ ”

“Oh, I'm _terrified._ ” She cackles an awful cackle and I half-wonder if this is Cassiopia. “I could snap your neck by looking at you, young man, I doubt you're immune to bullets.”

No doubt she's an evil bitch out to kill us, but she's right- he's starting to flag too. I can feel the panic coursing down him as though it's my own. I can't feel it but I know the fear in him, too, dwelling in his throat like a particularly clingy poison, and that's why neither of us have bothered to start running away when someone is pointing a gun straight at us.

Her finger brushes the trigger and it quickly transpires that we don't have to after all.

Only a few people in the village owned guns. Sometimes I'd be in the forest looking for something to eat and a mighty bang would splinter the air, followed by the sounds of some poor deer or rabbit running for its life. This probably influenced my expectations of this situation: me and Pierre would take to a similar scarper into the night, followed by this woman and the metal statues surrounding her, and we'd put up a grand fight only to individually get pumped full of lead.

This does not happen.

Fronted with the possibility that we could both stand here and die or run off and die, reality seemingly takes a third option and sends a horde of fast-moving things from our right to pick us up and carry us away before the bullet hits anything more sentient than a letter-box.

Regardless of this ridiculous change in situation it still takes me a moment to snap out of my previous state; only by the jostling of various arms and legs do I put two and two together and realise we've been effectively crowd-surfed out of the way of danger by a large group of teenagers. And certainly there's sound- in fact, there's quite a lot of it, since this is a bit of a stampede and people sound like they're yelling at me- but I understand none of it. Pierre. Where is he?

Apparently the woman hadn't done what I would have done if I was an assassin in her place and witnessed this sort of thing, which would be to shrug, give up, go home and chase the memory away with gin- the gunshots follow us. The shape of the rush switches from that of an irregular oblong to a more _'Classic Inkblot Tests of History'_ type of montage, narrowly avoiding as trees splinter around us and lead starts to graze heads. A pale hand flounders in my direction. I take it, and I'm finally reunited with Pierre.

He has a lot of noise to compete with, but I understand his inquiry of _“what in the blazes just happened?”_ in the end. I respond with a shrug.

Then I have to grip onto his hand with ferocity, because the running of the strangers around us gets faster and more focused and it seems like I could lose him as we all pour into one place. I squint above the flying crowd for a second to try and make sense of where, exactly, we're going, but I'm not sure if I can trust my eyes in this situation because it seems like the woods have only been a curtain all along and are lifting up into a black void. Which would be just too weird.

There's a blink, but I know it wasn't me, since I haven't risked blinking since the gun came onto the scene- and then we come out into balmy, yellowy light and the smell of incense.

It's a tent. We are in a fuckoff-big tent now. When are things going to start happening in a way I expect them to?

Pierre is carefully lowered to the ground and I find myself unceremoniously thrown. I look back up, ready to deliver one hell of a verbal lashing, but the face I see is of Madeleine who sat behind me in Geomancy and it jolts me so badly I forget the verbal lashing and just leave my mouth open like an idiot.

My hair wasn't always so short; when I joined it was long, almost to my hips. Madeleine used to take it and dip it in her inkwell so that when I stood up I got spattered with black.

Madeleine's mouth is moving but the words I'm hearing don't come from her: “was that Marianne Brockett? Is Marianne Brockett here? Will someone get Marianne Brockett?”

I never settled the incident with Madeleine. Marion did, though, by ceremoniously hacking all of my hair off in front of the class with some scissors, and then threatening to do the same to Madeleine's nose. Madeleine dropped Geomancy soon afterwards. And the ink never fully washed out of my clothes.

I have to stop focusing on Madeleine for a minute, though, because Kevin with the Blackmail has just pointed at me, and Laura Who Stole My Toothbrush has grabbed my arm and waved it in the air, and Whatshisface Who Cast the Vomiting-Bug Spell in Exam Season is dragging me through the crowd without the additional courtesy of dragging Pierre along too.

I lose him. That is, I lose Pierre, and unfortunately not Whatshisface. The path of people seals up behind me in a way not dissimilar to Greg's flesh earlier. It's when my heart takes an involuntary drop into my stomach that I realise I was enjoying being Marianne the Liked-Very-Much, and I'm not quite ready to return to being Marianne the Universally-Hated.

Whatshisface shoves me out into open space again, and I'm fronted with a boy slightly shorter than me who doesn't actually look very intimidating at all. His skin is deep and his dark eyes are a bit rounded- judging by that and his ornately-embroidered clothing, I think he might be from another country, maybe the Khuna isles. Maybe Marion should have listened to Juniper's occasional rambles about sewing styles. The boy, noticing my presence, gazes at me with a sort of benediction, and doesn't say anything until I do first.

“Uh... hello?” I wish I hadn't lost Pierre back there. He's much better at being polite than I am.

“Hello, Marianne Brockett.” His smile, though welcoming, somehow manages to make me feel even more awkward. “I've heard a lot about you.”

“ _Don't believe a word of it,”_ I spit out automatically. Somebody behind me sniggers.

This outburst forms only the tiniest ripple on the otherwise unfettered lake of this boy's calm. “My name is Aran Iqbal. The people you see around you are fellow survivors of the raids on Drysdell's, Bagnold's and Lacrimosa. You must be very confused.”

“Mm-hmmm.” The adjective reaches to heights he couldn't possibly imagine, so I keep quiet.

“We mostly follow Ezekiel's orders,” he admits, “so previously our job was to take things back which were bought using his money, but this time our goal was to find you, Marianne. And it seems we did that just in time.”

“Sure did.”

“I'm sure I don't need to tell you about her- you, of course, would have the most to say about Cassiopia here out of everyone. So we thought we could depend on you to perhaps explain the nature of some things we found in her house recently.”

“If it's the fridge that re-generates food, I don't know how it works either,” I tell him, as some other people hand him some rolls of stuff. “And believe me, I hate those cashmere draught excluders or whatever they are, I think they're tacky as shit.”

Draught excluders, like Greg's shin when he was almost dead- I instinctively gag at the memory. This feeling does not improve. Aran spreads out the rolls of stuff in front of me. 'Stuff' gets improved, but not by much, to 'things'.

My eye is drawn first to some shattered bits of pottery, white and delicate like an eggshell, covered in blood. Nausea doesn't so much improve as shift to a strange pain in the back of my head.

The rest of the roll doesn't look too optimistic. There's a key there on a leather strap, and what I think might be a vent cover, and a tiny black jewel. My arms and legs start to tremble, jumping between weights and positions. What did Aran ask me to do again- _explain the nature?_ My search for words grows more and more desperate. I can't explain what these things are. I can't explain anything at all.

“I don't know,” I say. “I don't know what these things are.” And then, “I'm sorry.”

“It's no matter. There's no reason you should have known, anyway.” Aran's smile only makes me feel worse. “Actually, Marianne, while you're still here, there's someone we have to return to you.”

His smile has switched from sympathetic to genuine, but all this does is confuse me. Someone? Do they steal people, too? Secretly I'm hoping the someone is Pierre so I won't have to feel so pathetic.

“It's almost a shame! I liked that cat.” Aran walks away somewhere else for a minute, and I hear a whistle followed by some kissing sounds.

“Cat?” It drops out of my mouth. “But I don't-”

I mutter it to myself, but a blonde girl nearby seems to hear me, and hisses something under her breath that sounds like _“unbelievable!”._ I don't want to look at her in the likely event that she's from Drysdell's.

Aran comes back, cat in arms, and he lets it loose to prowl around my feet as if I'm supposed to know what to do.

It's a ginger cat, mottled with stripes, and rather skinny. All I can really do is look at it. It's not content with brushing against my ankle just once- it loops around to rub against the other one until it forms a figure-eight circuit around my feet. This evening has pretty much been a downhill slump ever since we left the train, but for some reason, it's now I'm starting to really feel terrible- like someone's reached into my chest and yanked at my heart, crushing it into their palm like a little red knot of clay.

I hear Pierre emerge from the crowd of people behind me, and I can sense the disdainful look that flashes briefly across his face without even turning to look at it. This turns to concern. “Marianne- Marianne, are you alright?”

The cat meows at him. I turn, a cold sweat starting to drip down my temples.

“Pierre,” I say, “I don't feel too good.”

My legs let go of the weight they've been holding onto all this time. I almost fall straight onto him, which he averts by catching me, but in falling into his arms I fall away from the light and sounds of the room, and it seems for a while that I'm not here at all.

 

This next dream begins with a red-ink zero on the corner of a test paper.

When Cassiopia shatters the vase of lilies over my head the dream ends.

 

I open my eyes again to the balmy yellow light, the smell of incense, Pierre, and Molly. Meaningful inferences drift together and interlock in my head and preoccupy me from speaking for a good few minutes. The first is that I've woken up as Marianne, so I've had better luck than the me of the other day. The second is that not only did I forget a whole argument with Pierre, I also forgot the existence of my own pet cat. The third is that my skirt probably flew up when I fell. I start by emotionally repressing the third- it's easiest.

“Thank goodness,” Pierre sighs. “Are you alright, Marianne?”

“Pierre, I'd like to introduce you to Molly.” The aforementioned is licking my knuckles with her sandpaper tongue. “She's my cat, you see. A ginger tabby. Only thing is, Marion gobbled up my memory of her existence a few days ago, and took the memory of you in the library with it.”

I remember another thing, but I'm not lucky enough to pass out to do it: there are other people in the room besides us. Aran murmurs something to Pierre, and he murmurs something back, and the crowd is in a mild uproar.

The general consensus reached is that I need to go to sleep.

 


	14. There Was No Bridge

Sleep, as it turns out, is easier said than done. But then again, so was trying to convince an immensely concerned Pierre that I didn't need to. I couldn't weasel my way out of the cup of chamomile tea either, so now I'm lying here in a dark storage room on a futon that deserves the title of 'futon' just as much as a sarcophagus does with an odd, sickly sweet taste in the back of my throat.

My legs have been threatening to give out all evening but now I'm in a rest-friendly storage room they seem to want to be literally anywhere else. Pierre is somewhere across the room sleeping like an angel, and I can't help but feel envious. I lie there flat on my back, a human log. I am also like a log in that I have no concept of time. All I'm aware of is that it's pitch-black outside, and that's the only trustworthy knowledge this horrible slog through the night has bought me.

I'm not a child and I'm not afraid of the dark. I'm not dear old Emily-Rose either, whom folklore has indicated as too sensitive for even the smallest of intrusive mattress legumes, since I've slept in all kinds of places before and this futon isn't the worst of them. So why can't I sleep?

The only reassurance I have is that the backs of my eyelids would probably look no different from the ceiling I'm staring at. I'm not even sure if tents have ceilings, technically.

The sickly sweet taste turns to bitter; this wasn't a problem when Marion was in charge, I realise. Whatever she is or was, she didn't have the curse of being fully in charge of this body, so she could just switch off whenever she wanted to. Guilt stings at me for even thinking it, but perhaps I was better off squirrelled away in a corner of my own subconscious instead of out here. I can't do a thing.

Pierre's soft breaths fall on my ears from his deceptively short distance away. The question changes from _why_ can't I sleep to how _could_ I sleep? Do I deserve it? The boots sitting beside the futon still have fox blood encrusted in their tracks. My arms are shaking- the same arms that put an axe to Pierre's neck and tried to kill him.

The void of the ceiling is looking so very welcoming. I desperately try to look away from the linen; all I can imagine is the threatened flesh of a lily-white neck. I could grab it and scrunch it up and kill him. No, no, no.

I shut my eyes, but I don't see dark. I see red, fire. When the windows close to the outside world I'm left in my own void, and this void is not merciful enough to be empty. Colours and vague shapes swim in and out of my vision, slow as honey.

I feel a cold sweat again, collecting at the back of my neck. Cold, soft, girlish skin- like Juniper's. I still have her cardigan. I held onto it just for her, and I'm ready to give it back to her when I see her on the edge of the darkness.

Juniper's eyes are shaped like almonds- this is a detail I am only just noticing. Her nose is twitching. She says nothing; the hazel flecks in her pupils dance and twist wildly. I hold up the cardigan. She still does nothing. I try to drape it over her shoulders for her- maybe she's nervous- but her arms fall off and vanish into the floor. Juniper turns into a pink floral addendum on a pair of running legs and scurries away from me, burrowing under a bush. I call out after her but my mouth doesn't make any noises, so I run after her.

I go under the bush and come back out again, but there's no sign of Juniper anywhere. Instead I come out into the doorway of Greg's house. I don't want to look down. Somehow I do anyway. There he is, splayed all over the floor, and the cut across his stomach divides him completely in half. He looks like one of Theodore's bisected frogs, except he doesn't have any organs- only blood, and massive quantities of it. Above the spurting and the splattering I hear him ask for a glass of water, but the kitchen isn't there anymore when I look. So where do I find it?

I give up on Greg's house and turn around again. Professor Lovejoy is waiting there. She's wearing the same gown she was wearing when I last saw her, and the same facial expression, too. Her hand is poised against Cassiopia's liquor cabinet, which waits faithfully at her feet like a dog.

“Bad dreams can't swim,” she tells me, “this ought to help.”

Of course! That was the last thing she told me. When I get a headache I just have a drink.

“Marianne!” I hear someone call, but I ignore it.

I step forward to go and open it, but then it moves away. I reach further. It moves further. I start running after it and it moves further and further and further, leaving two parallel lines forever extending into the dirt behind it. And I'm just not fast enough. I turn around one last time and Professor Lovejoy has vanished. The liquor cabinet is still running into the distance, though, so I have no choice but to follow it.

And so I run as fast as I can. I expect it to move away at just as much speed, if not more, but it's returning to my field of vision. The dirt path is reaching its end. I'm finally starting to gain on it when we get to the bridge, except there is no bridge.

This is my chance so I jump forward to grab it and open the door, but I only see my fingers brush against the mahogany- it doesn't feel as though it's there. By some weird circumstance, I go backwards when I jump, which isn't as I planned. The ground I land on is horribly cold, and all the grass has frosted over. The leaves on the trees die instantly and drop away, and flakes of snow begin to whirl from the sky.

“Marianne!” I hear it again. “Marianne, snap out of it!”

Everything is dark. I become aware of someone holding me, one arm across my stomach and the other supporting my shoulder. I realise this person is Pierre.

“Shit,” I find myself murmuring, “I missed it.”

“Missed what?” Pierre responds. “Marianne, what's wrong?”

“That bastard liquor cabinet, Pierre,” I tell him, “that bastard liquor cabinet tried to outsmart me. Just when Professor Lovejoy told me to get a drink, and Greg probably needed a drink too or he'd keep bleeding everywhere- it just kept running off, the damn thing, but I'll catch it- I don't know how I'll cross the river, but I'll catch it and I'll show it what for-”

“What's gotten into you, Marianne?” His eye is very wide but his mouth is very thin.

“What's gotten into me, indeed?” It's funnier than I realise and I start laughing.

“Is it Marion?” His hands are quivering. “Is Marion back?”

“God, I hope not!” I cry out. “Can't she leave me alone?”

Just then my ears unblock, and I can smell things again. We're in the storage room in the tent. Not in the bedroll, but in the storage room nonetheless. My head is blistering, as though there's lightning crackling within it. I forget to breathe for a second. Pierre clicks his fingers and a lamp somewhere in the room switches on.

“Marianne?” he asks again. “Marianne, are you alright?”

“I don't know,” I reply, and then the dam bursts.

Every single iota of pain I've been holding back this evening comes to a front and without any kind of warm-up or warning I start crying hard into his chest. The tears run at a faster rate than I can possibly catch them. A lot of noises get caught in my throat, cries and moans and apologies, but there's so many that they all get stuck and the only things making it out of my mouth are strangulated little whimpers. I feel so bad. I feel so pathetic. My legs start to shudder until the whole of me is shuddering, like I'm taking part in my own personal earthquake and nobody else is invited.

I try to draw in breaths and get myself to stop but it ends up as more of a series of howls. The only thing that makes me stop is looking up and seeing Pierre there, who's looking me as if I just flung his pet hamster out of a window.

“Sorry,” I mutter. My voice is all clogged up. It's all a bit gross, really.

“Sorry for what?” His usual retort comes out a bit explosively, and he flings his arms around my shoulders. “Tell me what's wrong, Marianne. Don't hold in your misery a second longer.”

I swallow a lump in my throat. Then, after I swallow that, another one comes bobbing up, so I have to swallow that one too. Sure enough, once that one goes, a third sister lump comes out of nowhere and lodges itself comfortably in my trachea. This one is a bit more stubborn and requires a combination cough-swallow.

“I'm really scared, Pierre” is the response I eventually settle on, mostly because it's short.

“Well, no wonder,” he sighs. The muscles in his arms relax and he pulls me in closer so that I'm almost sitting on his lap. “You've been put through an awful lot, Marianne, I don't blame you.”

“You said that there were gods,” I mumble into him. “I think that they're punishing me, Pierre, because before my memories got erased the other afternoon I was going to run away from Greenbough. Now almost everybody in Greenbough is kidnapped and our school's been blown up. I don't want to be here anymore, Pierre, I wish I was just at school getting picked on again. It was so much easier than this.”

“I understand, Marianne,” he murmurs, “but we can't go back now.”

“I know.” He offers the crook of his neck to me, where I bury my head. “This isn't even going to be the worst of it, either, is it? I just know we're going to find out more awful things tomorrow. If there even is a tomorrow. If tonight ever ends.”

“I think I put you to bed at one in the morning,” he says. “The sun always rises early in the summertime. There'll be a tomorrow, definitely, I can reassure you of that much.”

He moves his hand to start stroking me, which is an unfamiliar sensation but, curiously, a very nice one. It's like he's summoning something else out of the mire of dread and embarrassment stagnating in my stomach, something warm and hopeful. It makes me want to hold onto him the way he's holding onto me. I take my arms from where they've flopped uselessly at my sides and wrap them around his waist.

“I know it's difficult, but you've been so brave.” The things he says softly into my neck make me feel a bit like a child, but not really in a bad way. “Do you think that was Marion? What you were going through just then?”

“Might have been.” My eyes are tempted to flutter closed, but I refuse to let them. “But might not have been, either. I'm still me.”

“That's the important part,” he breathes. “I used to get things like that too. Visions in the middle of the night, bad dreams. They seem so real, but they don't have a place in your mind forever. Don't worry.”

I wonder what things could possibly plague him. I can't imagine him sneaking one out of the back of the liquor cabinet. The darkness lying underneath that sweet, serene exterior would be something out of my grasp entirely, I think.

I turn my head and notice his one visible eye is underscored with a deep greyish-purple, the second most vivid colour on his face.

“Sorry I woke you up,” I tell him.

“I wasn't sleeping,” he replies.

“Oh.”

“Do you want to go back to bed, Marianne?” he asks.

“No.” I feel terrible for being so abrupt, so I try and be more tactful. “I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep after that. Or if I want to.”

“I don't think I want to, either.” He moves his hand to my other shoulder. “You ought to rest, though, even if you don't sleep. Just lie down and don't put yourself under any more strain. Tomorrow could be just as bad as today, if not worse, and you need a break.”

“Mhm.”

An idea is starting to creep into my head, but a memory has emerged in order to fight it off. Not a memory I was lucky enough to have forgotten beforehand, either. If I went with the idea in my head, well, it wouldn't be the first time I've slept next to a boy. The dim, reddish light and the strange uncharacteristic cold of the air is only serving to remind me even more.

I want to tell him- tell him both things- but at the same time I also don't. Would he know who I was talking about? Even I wouldn't know exactly who I was talking about, either. All I had was the fragment of some generic name, a Matt or a Nick or a Jonathan, and a purloined pair of leather gloves that stank of tobacco which I squirreled into my dorm room- now obliterated.

His last term at Drysdell's was two years ago. Getting ahold of money whenever my school meal ticket was lost or stolen had become significantly more difficult since then. Nobody else's standards sunk low enough.

“Marianne?” Pierre's voice, again, stops my mind from wandering off on another tangent. “Marianne, are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. Sorry, I just kind of zoned out a bit there.” I shake off my embarrassment and look back up at him. This becomes more of a study. Blue eyes, overgrown brown hair which the lamplight has threaded with copper strands like a halo, skin which has surpassed lamp-lit and gone into starlit. A hold that- wherever that place is- feels like home.

It's unfair to compare him to Matt-Nick-Jonathan. It's not money I need from him.

“Pierre?” My throat has become a staircase that grows steeper and steeper with every step, and my voice struggles its way upwards with rapidly-increasing futility. “Could you- maybe- lie down next to me? I'd feel... safer.” No, wrong word. “I mean, like, more reassured.” It's still not quite right. “I'd just feel better.”

“Of course!” His casual reaction is completely disproportionate to the amount of nerves I'm feeling at the moment. It's hard to hold it against him, though. “Just wait there, I'll bring the futons over.”

During the time it takes him to drag the futons and associated bedding over to where we've relocated I cycle through about ten billion different emotions. The most prominent one is a kind of dread, like the kind of thing you feel looking over a high balcony or down a well- the kind where you know, logically, things going catastrophically wrong is extremely unlikely but there's still that tiny chance of a horrible fall. There's something else hiding beneath it, though, a nicer feeling albeit one I don't recognise at all. The closest things I could probably relate it to are lying flat on my back with Molly purring on my chest, or the armchair in Professor Lovejoy's office. Which are close, but not quite there.

When he's finished he loosens his shirt a bit, but nothing carnal enough to write a romance novel about, and burrows into the bedsheets, bringing me with him. “Better?” he asks, with possibly the brightest smile I've ever seen on him, or anyone else, for that matter.

“Much better,” I manage. He's much too beautiful for mindless bone-jumping and I'm well aware of it, so why I feel so giddy is largely a mystery.

“I'm glad I get to spend this time with you,” he says lowly, “even though I wish it could be in better circumstances.”

There's nothing intelligent I can think of to respond with so I consider holding my tongue, but my mouth goes ahead anyway in bold ignorance of that and spouts possibly the stupidest question I've ever asked. “Pierre, are you an angel?” For a moment I wish he was meaner so he'd tell me to shut up.

“I'm quite alive, so I'm afraid not.” He gives a light chuckle and traces his finger down the side of my face to my temple. Every thought in my brain at that time gets jumbled up and sewn back together in an incoherent mess. I feel as though that incoherent mess is probably a neologism in some ancient language for those feelings I can't quite put my finger on.

“I feel like you could be, though.” Everything I'm saying is coming out like a corny pick-up line, and I would totally slap myself for it if it wouldn't ruin the mood. “I mean- you're _beautiful_ , and I don't mean that in like, a supermodel kind of way, I mean, like, if we lived a thousand years ago people would probably worship you and offer you grapes and that kind of thing.” I may as well just open my mouth and put my foot inside and be done with it. “I mean- you've been so nice to me- to _me_ , and nobody's nice to me-”

“Marianne.” Thankfully he interrupts my fast-derailing spiel before I can embarrass myself any longer. “If there's one thing you do for me, make it that you stop thinking about yourself in that way, alright? I doubt the sorts of people we know would be much nicer to me, either, if they knew my real thoughts.”

“Your real thoughts?” The enigma of what lurks under Pierre- and not just in a literal sense- is back to be questioned.

“I never believed in bullying the weak,” he sighs, “and I don't really like having so much money, either. The thing they don't tell you about high society is that they're all so _boring_ , too. They know it, too, but you can't mention it, it's impolite. That's all it is, it's the only thing separating me and you. Politeness.” He sighs again, deeper and more desperate. “All politeness ever did was empty me out so others could project their awful beliefs and opinions onto me and validate their tiny, desperate little worlds. It's an overrated quality.”

For a minute I'm overcome with guilt, since I've gone and completely erased that smile from his face, but this goes away surprisingly quickly. “People used to ask why I still attended Drysdell's if I couldn't use magic. I suppose I stayed because my dad was paying and I still wanted to see Professor Lovejoy. So, Pierre, you can use magic but hate high society with a vehement passion. Why did _you_ stay at Drysdell's?”

He turns and stares at the fabric ceiling for one very extended moment, the same way you might take a long drag from a cigarette. “I suppose, if I stay on throughout all of that ghastly studying, I'll get some kind of qualification and maybe be able to make something out of myself. I want to make my Nanna proud, since she works so hard for me and Emily-Rose, and- if I can, make the world a slightly better place to live. Even if just by a tiny fraction.”

I make a noise of agreement. I don't think this really needs my contributions- I just want to hear him talk. I've never heard him talk this much and this frankly before. He's gone back to staring at the ceiling, so I make some encouraging hand gestures and nod a bit as a way of telling him to go on.

“Because-” he stops- “I know nice people exist, who act on the good in their hearts. For me, from the beginning, that person was a small girl with a box of chalk.” The smile comes back again, slower but even more radiant than before. “Even if her fortune has taken a turn for the worse, well, she's still worth fighting for and protecting, isn't she? Studying and getting good grades is just a given.”

I find I'm matching his smile measure-for-measure when he turns back round to look at me.

“Just in case you don't get what I'm implying here,” he says, “you're what I value most, Marianne. You always have been.”

“I thought it'd be a bit dickish to assume something like that,” I admit, “but if you told me it was anything or anyone else, I think I would have gotten a bit jealous.”

He laughs and for a minute, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence to the contrary, it seems like everything's okay with the world.

“I want to get magic so I can fight for you too,” I mumble, “and I want to find the word for this thing which I haven't been able to find so far.”

“I'm sure you will,” he smiles, running his fingers through my hair.

“I want to find all my missing memories so I can feel whole again, even when you aren't there.” Mumbling out whole words is becoming hard work. “And- and I want to get Professor Lovejoy and Juniper back, so that way I can be surrounded by nice people- and- you know, I could really go for some vegetable soup right now, actually- and...”

Listing things off gets too tedious, and it's easier to lean against his chest and just breathe, in and out, matching his breaths so we're like waves lapping against a shore. My eyelids get heavy. He seems to automatically take the cue to turn the light off, so he snaps his fingers again. There's no moon in the darkness shrouding us now, but he's a good enough substitute.

I slip away into sleep before I can think of how I'm going to fall asleep any second, and it's rather pleasant. I think I have two dreams in that time. The first dream is another balmy one like one of those memories, set in Professor Lovejoy's empty classroom. The date on the blackboard is October the twenty-fifth, and on my desk is a little box tied with a ribbon. There's a tag, too, reading _'To Marianne'_ in the waltzing cursive of the smartest boy in the class. Dream-me doesn't look inside the box, because she doesn't need to. It's probably nice. That's all I need to know.

In the second dream, there's an iron ring with a lot of keys on it. I know I have to find the right key. There's probably about a hundred keys, and they all look equally nice and shiny. Some of them have different shapes. Some of them are blue or copper or gold. Not a single ugly key on that ring, though, that's for certain. Any of those keys could be the right one.

I don't think I found it in the end. Perhaps if I had more time, if waking up wasn't something I have to do, I would have done.  But it's okay.  I don't feel like it really matters too much.

 


	15. A Castle of Clouds

For a moment I don't even notice that I've woken up, because it all just feels like an extension of some greater dream. I feel revitalised for the most part, but my head feels like an iron ball. A bigger past than ever is weighing on it. I'm not sure I like it.

Bright light is seeping in through the woven walls, though I'm not quite sure how, since nothing else suggests that this could be a tent outside. The floor is cold and hard, no birds are singing. The various odds and ends of this storage room reveal themselves: rations in tins and jars, ropes, crockery, books, bottles. It kind of reminds me of my room in Cassiopia's house, and though I can't recognise anything from there, a strange feeling creeps over my shoulder. Like being groped in a crowd by someone you can't see. The thought of the only private space I ever had, untouched by Cassiopia and shared with nobody but Molly, being invaded and burgled sickens me. I put my head back under the covers so I don't have to look at anything but Pierre.

Even my shifting around doesn't stir him in the slightest. His right eye is eclipsed by a curtain of curling hair even in sleep. His most controversial trait- I even remember that Amity Reilly asking him why he didn't just get it cut. Windy days during term-time became tumultuous affairs when somebody emerged with news of a two-eyed Pierre sighting, as if he was some kind of phenomenal magical creature like the golden-sugar slug or the twilight-dwelling melanistic pondbeast. I've only ever seen the Other Eye in outline before, when he turned his head certain angles. The temptation to sweep that hair aside now, where his slightly more vocal admirers can't see, is a strong one, but I ignore it.

The desire to stare is not so easily overcome, however, and I can't help but gaze at him, forgetting to blink a few times. He doesn't belong in a bestiary, that's for certain. It's hard to believe I could have held animosity in the past to a person who looks heavenly in both lamplight and sunlight, who doesn't have a single harsh angle on him.

Thinking on it, it probably wasn't animosity at all- fear, fear of the unknown describes it better. He never had any petty insults to sling, never so much as looked at me unkindly, yet wasn't neutral towards me either like how Juniper was- that terrified me. On the scale of visceral prejudice to indifference, he occupied a completely different spot of his own. And when, in a rare moment of being myself, I would mentally survey my peers at that hellish school and strategise how to avoid conflicts the best- that strange unknowableness could only mean he had something worse in mind for me than anyone else could muster, and it was all a matter of time.

Looking at him now, it seems like the tiniest of breezes could whisk him away from me. I bite the skin off my lips until they go raw, and wrench my eyes shut. I could only imagine how freaked out he'd be if he woke up to see me staring at him gormlessly. It's so difficult not to, though, when he's a rare example of something turning out well for once. Some part of me wants to cling onto him desperately and beg him, _never let me go_ , but even I know how pathetic that would be. I keep having to remind myself that he's not an angel, he said so himself, putting him on a pedestal would be unfair on him- but the fact that we get to exist here together, side by side, seems like a miracle.

Then he starts to shift around. A sort of murmur escapes his lips, and an arm of his untucks itself and bends awkwardly around my shoulder like a drinking straw.

“Good morning,” Pierre mumbles, smiling. He's awake.

“Morning.” My face is going red again.

He shifts around some more, moving to lie on his back. Despite it all the curtain of hair doesn't budge- perhaps he keeps it in place with magic or something. He stretches, yawns, blinks. Then looks at me. “That expression of yours,” he notes, still smiling. “So contemplative. What are you thinking about, Marianne?”

I can make eye contact with him only briefly, and then I have to switch to looking at his sword that's lying on the ground further away.

“I was thinking about the twilight-dwelling melanistic pondbeast,” I lie. “It's an invertebrate that emerges on the full moon. It's a female-dominated species which mates for life and makes its nests in river shallows where the water is exceptionally clean. Mature ones will shed scales that are kind of iridescent. It tastes like chicken, also.”

 

There's a long while where we're just laying there, because I can't think of anything else to say and nobody's come to get us or anything. Something feels strange now that Pierre's woken up. His breath feels like the loudest thing in the room, even though it isn't, and if I close my eyes for just a second I can sync mine up with his easy as anything. More than that, though, I feel like if I dropped back and rolled over onto him we wouldn't crash into each other, just meld and fuse together like ghosts. I could pull back that curtain of hair and read everything I could ever possibly know about him from his pale face. It seems ridiculous that I could feel so close to someone when we've only known each others' true selves for about a day, but there it is.

“So quiet, Marianne,” he hums dreamily. “Is something troubling you?”

“Sort of,” I murmur. “There's this weird thing I'm aware of all of a sudden, but I'm not sure what it is.”

“Another memory?” he asks.

“No, I don't think so,” I reply, “but thanks for that birthday present last year.”

“Think nothing of it.”

 

Eventually we decide to go outside, as we're both starving and Pierre wonders if he might be able to find another cup of tea. It's like a huge common-room in the main area of the section, with all manner of students passing in and out in little flocks. Instantly I'm reminded of why I hate common-rooms.

Even when we just awkwardly linger in a corner it seems like we're at the front of a stage; the Drysdell's students goggle and sneer at the juxtaposition we create, and the other students just gaze at me, probably wondering about the pot shards and the fainting. I wonder about the pot shards too; mostly how I survived them, but I haven't looked at the back of my head yet. I kind of don't want to.

The first to actually engage us directly out of all these mystery people is a short boy I don't recognise, who has scruffy blonde hair and teeth that appear to dance in quadrille.

“Mornin', mister.” I'm about to take offence, but then I realise he's addressing Pierre. “You don't know me- m'name's Finn Jernigan. I just noticed that big ol' sword you got there.”

“It's a sabre, technically,” he says, “but yes.” I make a mental note to look up swords the next time I get access to a library, if ever.

“Now, listen. I got this invention, yeah? And I wan' check it's completely indestructible.” I don't know who this kid even is, but he's treating me like I don't exist anyway.

“I'd like to help you, but swords aren't really for that kind of thing-”

Pierre gets interrupted by the boy tugging on his sleeve. “It's important! Real important. If I can get this thing past the patent offices I swear blind I'll give you a share in the royalties, and b'lieve me, it's goin' get _big_ , and those royalties'll be the like of which you've never _seen_ the like of which.”

“Look, I don't know where you're going with this-” I decide to cut in, since Pierre is starting to look bothered- “but I doubt you even specifically need a sword- sorry, a sabre for this invention machine of yours, so can't you ask someone-”

It's too late. Pierre gets dragged away by the boy who apparently can't wait any longer. My attention gets split between him promising he won't be a few minutes, and a girl dressed in pale blue who's just entered the corner of my vision. The reason for that is because she has Molly.

I immediately forget my mild irritance at the kid and start feeling furious. I feel like I might recognise this girl, at least from the hallways of Drysdell's, because she's glaring at me as if _I'm_ the one who's just stolen an animal. Her face is incredibly made-up, and her eyelids are caked with mascara, but somehow their fluffy appearance doesn't make her look any less bitchy. She stands out from the crowd for that reason, but her vanilla-blonde hair is also plentifully and tightly curled and her pale blue dress seems to stick out for a mile around her, so it doesn't help that among a crowd of unwashed teenagers she looks like a porcelain doll. She mouths something I don't catch.

Thankfully, Molly sees me too and comes prowling over as she always does. I take a break from bitterness for a minute to scratch her around her pointy ears and underneath her chin. She meows at me, and like always, I don't understand what for, but it feels comforting.

“You don't even _deserve_ her,” the doll girl says, more audibly this time.

“ _Excuse_ me?” The response comes flying out of my mouth like a knife. I make sure to keep at least one hand on Molly so she doesn't wander back to that girl again. I don't want her to start thinking she has a point. “And just who the hell are you?”

“Please!” she spits. “You _know_ who I am, Marianne. You've been doing this for years, so why don't you stop already? It's sick and twisted of you.”

“Actually, I don't,” I tell her, less pointedly than I intend.

“You do,” she retorts, screwing up her pink face into a much less doll-like composition.

I sigh a deep, heavy sigh that takes most of the air out of my lungs. “I'll make this short, okay?” Molly has started to lick my hand again, and it tickles. “I have personal beef with just about every Drysdell's person in here, so that doesn't make you special. There's probably at least six other people within your radius at the moment who want to glare at me and shoot vague barbed remarks at me, so wait your goddamn turn.” Molly bites my hand to try and gain my attention, and the word “bitch” follows.

That little word seems to hit her hard, as it seems to ripple across her entire body. Eyelashes be damned, her glare turns to stone on me. “Un-be- _liev_ -able,” she hisses, causing a few people to turn their heads. “How could you act this way? Right when Felina-”

“Who's Felina?” I ask, more pointedly than I intend it this time.

“You don't even remember her either?” she half-shrieks. “What the hell is even _wrong_ with you, Marianne?”

“Uh, there seems to be some kind of parasite living in my mind who feeds off my memories so she can eventually take control of my body to commit homicides,” I tell her. Now her expressions go blank. “Did you miss the memo?”

“What?” the girl asks.

“I shit you not,” I say. “No jokes here or anything. Just ask Pierre. He'll tell you. And his sense of humour is different to mine.”

“Is that seriously why?” the girl asks. “Did you say- mind parasite? That's ridiculous.”

“And you were saved from a life-threatening raid yesterday with no chance to pack your bags, yet you wake up in the morning with a full face of makeup,” I reply, “which I think is a bit ridiculous, but I still can't deny that the makeup's on your face, can I?”

The girl pauses. Her feet teeter in shiny black shoes. Then she sighs with resignation. “I keep my makeup bag and hair equipment in a tiny pocket dimension so I can summon them at any time.”

“Suddenly mind parasites don't seem so far-fetched, do they?”

“You're right.” Her voice starts to crackle and go all waily, as if this is something really difficult for her to admit. “You _are_ right. Oh, hell. She's right.”

“Ambidextrous,” I correct her. Molly has sat down, and she keenly observes a fly crawling across the floor.

“So you really mean it,” she says, hollow. “You don't know who I am. And you don't know who Felina is, either.”

“Well, no,” I say. “That's what I've been trying to tell you.”

The girl does another one of her double-takes. This conversation seems to hold a lot more meaning for her than it does for me. It's like one of those enchanted windows in the detention rooms at Drysdell's, where the teachers could look in on you and see everything you were doing, yet you wouldn't be able to see anything at all if you tried looking through one, just blackness. Marion tried breaking one once, and smashed my hand into a brick wall, hence the ambidextrousness. It was a necessary skill.

“Come with me,” she says, sounding incredibly worried.  
“Why?” I ask.

“We'll talk in private.” She turns away, gesturing with my hand for me to follow.

I decide eventually to go along with wherever this conversation's about to lead me. Molly follows too, indubitably for her own feline reasons. We follow her into another curtained partition, just like the storage room, except without the storage.

The girl goes over to a bedroll- presumably her own, since the blanket is tucked neatly into it and looks nothing like the mess me and Pierre left ours in. She sits down, folding herself into some kind of position that causes the petticoat beneath her dress to spring out like a horde of stampeding rams. All trace of anger is gone from her face, but her glossy lip is trembling. Molly goes and sits on another bedroll, not looking at us.

She opens her mouth to speak, but then doesn't, and instead plunges her arm into somewhere. Literally, her hand vanishes from sight for a minute, and comes back holding a fancy cardboard box. She offers it up to me, and some colourful round things that look sort of like burgers are in there.

“Macarons,” she explains. “They're delicious. Take one, won't you?”

I take one, mostly because I haven't heard anything about breakfast yet and my stomach is howling. It's purple, and tastes like violets.

“Marianne, I'm Kirsten.” She tells me her name when I'm right in the middle of the macaron, and an unexpected filling glues my teeth together. “Kirsten Oliver. You know, as in Oliver and Sons, the shopping complex near here? My dad owns it.”

I vaguely recognise the latter name from one of Cassiopia's catalogues. Never the one she shoved at me years ago when I unwittingly prescribed myself this tatty ensemble for the majority of my adolescence, though, so I suppose I can't blame this girl for that. But otherwise- “I've heard the name Kirsten in one of my memories, I swear. I've been able to recover a few that I lost, and I swear your name's cropped up somewhere.”

“Well, we used to be friends, when we were both really little,” she begins, and she even seems to hesitate. “Daddy- uh, Dad didn't like me playing with any of the kids he deemed too scrubby, I remember, but you were okay, he said your dad was worth getting to know. Does that- ring any bells?”

“The memory-” I snap my fingers- “the other day, it was the first one I got back- I don't exactly remember you, but I remember being friends with Pierre when I was small, and I said something to him about a Kirsten- yeah, I suppose that makes sense, doesn't it? Unless there's another Kirsten.”

“No, no other Kirstens,” she says, primly. “But here's the thing- do you remember Felina?”

“Um,” I say. I try to dredge up a name. “Er. Felina? Uhhhh. No. No, I don't.”

“Oh, no,” she sighs. Her voice goes a bit wobbly. “That's so sad. No Felina? But it was such a big thing, you know, when she washed up on the docks in that dinghy with all the tigers. It'd be so hard to forget, you know, normally. And how she could change the colour of her hair! I mean, she still can- I mean, she could-”

Kirsten changes. She clutches her hand to her ample chest like she's been stabbed horribly there. Her lip goes from trembling to practically vibrating.

“Why,” I say, slowly, “what happened to Felina? Was it- you know, the raid?”

Kirsten nods her head, and a single tear rolls down her face powerful enough to leave a thin wake of ruined makeup. “I knew something was wrong- something was wrong that morning, I'd been having premonitions for a while and that morning I just _knew-_ she pointed at me, that woman with the gun, and shouted something about a princess-”

“A princess?” I echo. My mind starts screaming Emily-Rose's name, but I remember the panic Pierre was in yesterday and try my best to keep my mouth shut.

“They're after the princess of Anachronia, Aran told me,” Kirsten sobs, “and naturally nobody knows who the hell she is, but I think that woman saw how I, you know, how I dress, how I look- I think she thought it was me- and that was when all the violence started and we all got whisked off and- there was that weird _spell_ , it didn't even feel like one, but- if Felina hadn't-”

Kirsten stops for a minute, full-on sobbing and heaving. She's making my panic attack from last night seem calm in comparison. I try and encourage her to keep on talking with hand gestures, because I don't have those magical calming qualities that Pierre has.

“The woman shoved me in front of this _man_ ,” she resumes, groggily, “but Felina jumped in front of me, and I saw it. He'd aimed a spell at me but it hit her, and- it was like she died straight away. She just- ceased moving, ceased breathing- and I was crying out for someone to help her, but only I got any help, and- now I'm here.”

She's finished, and I've never seen a Drysdell's student look so utterly miserable and non-smug before.

“Shit,” I say.

“It should have been me,” she mutters, “it should have been me, she shouldn't have taken that for me. Felina's- Felina's excellent, in case you didn't hear. She fought tooth and nail to get a Drysdell's scholarship so she could go to school with me, she didn't just get in because of money. She's top in everything she does, she's the most powerful duelist and the best at sports- if she was here, she'd at least know what to do.”

I ignore the money remark. “Did I know her?”

“You did,” she sobs, “everyone did, everyone loved her, you loved her, I love her. We were- we were a thing, you know? I know about you and Pierre, everyone talks about the way he looks at you. She is to me what he is to you right now, Marianne. Imagine losing Pierre.”

“I don't want to,” I say on instinct. The thought is like poison in my mind.

“Exactly,” she mumbles. “If I'd known- I knew something bad was going to happen, but if I knew something as bad as losing Felina was going to happen, I'd have kept more things to remember her by than just this ribbon in my hair.” She turns her head round to show me a ribbon the colour of the sky embedded within her champagne hair. “Wouldn't you, Marianne?”

It feels like something's hit me in the head. “Oh no.”

“What's wrong?” It looks like there's two Kirstens asking me that question.

My vision starts to fade in and out in what would usually be a strange sensation but is actually quite a painfully familiar one. All I can taste in my mouth is violets, like there's a whole field of them growing on my tongue. My nose stings. Here it comes.

“Marianne, are you okay?” Kirsten starts clamouring around me with her hands. “Marianne? Marianne?” She's a blob, partly blue, partly blonde.

“It's happening again-” I manage- “shit, why do I always have to pass out when-”

My head hits the floor.

 

I see the ribbon in Kirsten's hair, but now it's wrapped around my wrist again. Not mine, of course, it's the me of years ago again. It takes a bit longer for me to recognise her this time since we're not in Greenbough, she's not wearing the dress from before, and it's like someone's sucked all of her energy out with a drinking straw. We're in front of a church, bigger and more imposing than the church-in-the-middle-of-nowhere, with nothing funny or strange about it. Bells are chiming from the tower. Bouquets of gold-encrusted lilies are tied to the door-frame.

Despite the dissonance between my past selves, the context for this memory is a bit easier to put together because of all the clues. Gold and white and wedding bells- Cassiopia, obviously. Even though she was in a recent memory I'm still not ready to look at her face again. I wish I could shout at my younger self not to enter that chapel, not to face her.

A completely different voice from my own emerges from a shrub on the path. “Marianne! Do not go in there! That woman's in there!” The voice has quite a strong accent, a bit like Aran's, and it stumbles over in a few places, but it gets there. Younger Marianne turns in shock, the posy of flowers in her hand falling from the ground.

A little brown face emerges from the shrub. It's a little girl's: her eyes are a shiny dark brown, her nose bony, and her eyebrows are bristly black but her crop of hair sleek and blood-red.

“Felina?” Younger Marianne's words are apparitions of her earlier shouts. “What are you doing here? You'll get into trouble if they find you-”

“No!” she whispers hoarsely. “We have come to help you, Marianne! But don't go in there. The adults will see you and you'll get in worser trouble.”

Another girl's head pops out of the shrub, far more easily recognisable as Kirsten- same chubby face, same heavy-lidded eyes- but she doesn't say anything, just blinks anxiously. So this is it- little Kirsten, and little Felina.

Younger Marianne trails away from the door, and the girls run round to the side of the church building.

“I don't want to be here,” says younger Marianne, echoing my exact sentiments. “I hate that lady, she's evil. She's marrying Daddy and I can't stop it.”

“We know,” says Kirsten, “Pierre told us.” Younger Marianne stunts as if slapped.

“I told the animal home people all about it too,” says Felina. “I told them about that awful lady, that Cazz-eeyo-pee-uh. They have a spare bed for you just like they got that one for me. You can live there, with me and the tigers.”

All the melancholy on younger Marianne's face is ditched in an instant. “Really?”

“They found a kitten the other day,” Felina goes on, “a really, really pretty one.”

“I called her Molly,” Kirsten says proudly.

“You can look after her,” says Felina. “She is real smart so she knows how to get food and stuff. Molly just needs a owner. But Kirsten can't have a cat, she has rabbits.” The latter nods.

The church door slams around the corner but Marianne ignores it. My heart drops. “We should go,” she says, her eyes lighting up, “we should go! Yeah! I really wan' a kitten, I love cats!”

They cheer and celebrate in a circle and then the inevitable happens. A claw in a white satin glove reaches for younger Marianne's shoulder and tears her backwards, and she gives a tiny cry like a wounded animal. Kirsten and Felina stop cheering immediately.

“You impudent little swine,” the all-too-familiar voice of Cassiopia snarls, “filthy good-for-nothing little _bitch_ \- how dare you! How _dare_ you!”

Marianne freezes in her grasp. The other two stumble back a couple of steps; Felina girds her tiny body in the ground, and Kirsten runs off immediately, wailing.

“ _Look at me when I'm talking to you!”_ Cassiopia jerks my younger self around, and then seizes at her wrist- “get that grubby thing _off!_ ” The ribbon gets ripped from her wrist and thrown like some kind of projectile. “The nerve of you, the nerve of you! The nerve! You'll not run off, you worm, you won't ruin this for me!”

Felina isn't saying anything, but I can read the expression on her face where my younger self can't, and her bushy eyebrows furrow. Her eyes flicker up and down Cassiopia, who must seem like a giant to her, a giant decked out in a meringue dress, and her face looks so mature for such a tiny girl. I can feel realisations flicker across it.

“Your _friends_ -” the word is invoked like a curse- “are going to leave the premises _right_ now, or I'll dispose of them with my own hands. And any more tricks from you, child, and I'll make your life a living hell. Is that clear?”

Marianne doesn't nod, nor does she shake her head. Cassiopia seems to draw a 'yes' out of thin air and yanks her away by the scruff of her neck, spitting more insults from her lips like bad wine. Felina's prophesised retreat, however, never happens. She stays, her expression still an adult's on the face of an infant, and picks up the discarded ribbon.

The church disappears, as does the grass and the sky, but Felina still doesn't leave. She transforms instead, distending, twisting, growing until her hair is at her shoulders and she's my height, and then until her hair is in a ponytail that drapes down to her expertly-cut hips and she's taller than me, taller than Kirsten, even slightly taller than Pierre. 'Best at sports' shines like a beacon- she has a six pack and toned thighs where I have stretch marks and nettle stings.

“You're Felina,” I say. “Why are you still here? This isn't a memory anymore, is it?” Nowhere in sixteen years and three quarters can I think of a time where it'd make sense for me to be floating in a void with a girl I barely remember.

“Oh, you can see me?” she asks. “Good. I was hoping this would work.”

“Are you real?” I ask. “Kirsten said you died.”

“Not quite,” she says. “Certainly, my soul was ripped from my body by Master Gawain's spell. And it hurt, yes, but I am not dead. Nobody is. We can be put back, yet.”

“So getting your soul ripped out doesn't kill you?” She shakes her head. “Oh, okay. Right. Now that that's cleared up, how are you in my head right now? It's already cramped in here to begin with.” I don't want to mention the murderous elephant in the room by name.

“I understand, but it really is simpler than you think it is,” she smiles. “You read a lot, Marianne. Do you know about the difference between magic and psychic powers?”

“Um...” I honestly might, but if I did read about it it was probably ages ago. “Can you just give me a quick refresher on it?”

“With magic, you need a corporeal form, among other requirements. Psychic powers are not like this. All you need is soul power. Soul power is one thing I still have, even if it is not where I usually keep it, so I can still use my telepathy, albeit not as well.”

“You're a telepath too?” I ask. “Good lord, are you good at everything or what? Kirsten didn't even mention psychic powers when she was reeling off all your talents earlier.”

“Did she not? Oh, Kirsten.” Felina smiles a remarkably gentle smile. “Is she safe and well? That is all I contacted you to ask.”

“Well, she's safe, sure,” I say. “A bit torn up emotionally, you know, she's beating herself up a bit. Not really sure what to do, to be honest.”

“Oh, Kirsten!” These two seem to express themselves the same, I can't help but notice, the same sadness and the same happiness. They're way more in sync than I am with Pierre, and for a moment I feel a bit jealous.

“By the way,” I add, unsure, “how is it you can contact me with your telepathy thing? Haven't you tried reaching Kirsten? Wouldn't it work better with her?”

“Well, no, like I said, my powers are weaker while I'm compromised like this,” Felina mutters. “It was strange, however, since I had been trying to reach out to someone ever since my soul was ripped out, and for the longest time there had been nothing but silence around me. Only for the last- few hours? I'm not sure how long it's been, as it seems like a long time, but is nothing compared to how long I've been here- but I've heard your thoughts, loud and clear. You send a strong signal.”

“Please don't tell anyone what I was thinking about Pierre in bed earlier,” I blurt out automatically. “I mean, he gets enough creepy shit from the Drysdell's girls as it is-”

“Not all of them,” she refutes, “ _some_ of us are lesbians. And I won't. All I ask is that you tell Kirsten that I stand a chance at living.”

“Right,” I say, “I'll do that. Any idea why I'm a, uh, strong sender, though?”

“Nothing conclusive,” she responds, “but your aura is very empathetic, you know. All of your emotions cause this nothingness to ebb and pulse like a heartbeat. Perhaps you are not as powerless as our school has led you to believe, hm?”

“I'm just going to be honest,” I tell her, “and say I have no idea what you mean.”

“No? Never mind,” she shrugs. “It should be better for you to realise this on your own. I did with mine. Anyhow, you have places to be, and it would not be wise for you to remain unconscious any longer, Marianne. You'll be woken up. Three, two, one...”

 


	16. Farther

My nose is hit by a force both quick and brutal, and before I have time to get my bearings it hits me again. Then, wailing.

“Mrow! Mrrrrooo _ooooo_ www!!”

“Do you think we should leave her for a bit?” Kirsten's voice.

“Let her wake up.” Pierre's voice? Thank fuck. “Look, she's stirring.”

I get a paw to the nose again. “I'm awake,” I croak, “I'm awake. Stop hitting me, Molly.”

I try and open my eyes the best I can, but it's an uphill struggle. It's so bright in here. Molly tucks her paw away when our eyes meet, and makes herself comfortable on my stomach. For a moment it feels like Kirsten has put a nice fluffy pillow under my head, but then the next thing I see is Pierre's face above me, so it's evident that somehow my head has ended up in his lap. I'm tempted to compliment him on his thighs, but this does not seem the right time nor the right place.

“Are you alright, Marianne?” He's got his gentle smile on again, and unlike all the other times he's asked this question he doesn't seem very worried. “Was that another memory?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Memory.”

“Molly has incredible intuition, especially for a cat,” he chuckles lightly. “She knew exactly where to find me.”

“And thank heavens, because I had no idea what was going on,” Kirsten groans, looking shaken.

That's what prompts me to remember Felina- but I remember so many things about Felina that I have no idea what to bring up first. She's not dead? She's telepathic? Through some contrivance, she gave me my pet cat? She has a six-pack? She wants Kirsten to cheer up? I have 'empathic energy'? Oh lord, what?

“What did you see, Marianne?” Pierre asks. It seems he's gotten used to this memory thing already, which I have to hand it to him for.

“My pet cat is telepathic and has a six-pack,” I say without thinking.

“What?”

“Uh,” I begin, “first I remembered when my stepmother married my dad, and seeing Kirsten and Felina there who tried to help me but couldn't- but then it stopped being a memory and became a vision, and Felina as she is now spoke to me with her psychic powers and asked if Kirsten was doing okay, and to tell Kirsten that she still stands a chance at living 'cause having your soul ripped out doesn't kill you, and she also said she can read my thoughts, that she's a lesbian, and that my energies are empathetic or something.”

Kirsten puts her hand over her mouth. Pierre just frowns. “I could have sworn you said something different at first,” he says.

“Felina spoke to you?” Kirsten asks, voice quavering. “She's not dead?”

“Not entirely, no,” I tell her. “I mean, she's not entirely dead, not she didn't entirely speak to me, because she did, and she can. Her telepathy's just less effective because her soul and her body are separate, because of the way psychic powers work or something, but I need to read up about that.”

“I don't understand,” Kirsten frowns now, “surely- she told me the psychic powers are in her soul- and we're each other's most valued thing, and that's got something to do with the soul too, so she should be able to talk to me. Why you, Marianne? I don't mean anything rude about it, but- you two haven't spoken in years.”

“Your most valued thing is tied directly to your soul and influences the specific things you can do with it,” Pierre chips in, before I can answer her question. “Magic, psychic powers, and such. It all stems from that. I'm sorry, Marianne, I interrupted.”

“No worries,” I tell him. “Anyway, she said I send a strong signal or something. Hence the thought-reading thing. I asked her why, and she just said something vague about realising things for myself and emotions and stuff. I don't really get it, myself.”

Kirsten's immaculately-plucked eyebrows start to furrow and she murmurs some things to herself. Pierre just shrugs and strokes my hair. Molly stretches out and starts to pursue Pierre's other hand with interest.

It's quiet for a moment and then it isn't.

Someone pushes through the partition and I realise it's the boy with the wonky teeth from earlier. “Ay, Kristen,” he shouts, “Aran's called a meetin'. Figgered you'd wan'a go.”

“It's _Kir_ sten,” she corrects him, “and yes, I suppose. Wait for me.”

The boy flashes a thumbs-up and leaves just as abruptly as he entered. Kirsten stands up, brushing invisible crumbs from herself, and sighs.

“Meeting?” Pierre asks. “What kind of meeting?”

“I don't know yet,” Kirsten responds. Her face has hardened again into that ubiquitous primness, and none of the sadness or confusion is to be seen. “Before we picked up you two, I made sure with Aran beforehand that if there was going to be any talk of going back out there and dealing with this Gawain problem that I was going to be included. I suppose that man's going to be there, too.”

“That man?” I echo. I have a dreadful feeling I already know who she means.

With lightning-fast intuition Pierre seems to pick up on my discomfort. “Could we attend, too? I have some important information as well.”

Thankfully Kirsten forgets I ever asked anything, and turns to him. “I suppose you could, if you wanted. Nothing's stopping you.”

Pierre nods at me, and unfortunately I have to remove my head from his lap. We both get up, and we follow Kirsten out.

 

Our following Kirsten turns into following the blonde kid again, and he leads us into what isn't another partition but is rather a smaller area attached to the main space of the tent. It's somehow a lot quieter in there when we step in- magic, probably. A kind of makeshift table has been constructed in the middle out of crates, and makeshift chairs out of cushions.

The blonde kid plonks himself down on one, right next to Aran. From there, Aran's face goes on a journey from serene- “oh, hello, Finn”- to slightly henpecked- “...welcome, Miss Kirsten”- to serene again- “Pierre Snowling, it's a pleasure to have you”- to somewhat troubled- “Miss Brockett- I mean, Marianne- hello.” There's nobody else here but us yet. I don't know why he's suddenly so fettered by my being here.

The trouble on his face dissolves before I have the time to ask about it, and he resumes his almost zen-like state. The Finn kid starts rambling about his indestructible machine, and Aran nods, but I get the sense that he's not really listening. We take seats of our own opposite from them- Pierre on my left, Kirsten on my right. Deep inside my chest my heart starts to hammer and I can't provide a solid reason why. Pierre at least seems to be aware of my discontent and reaches down to hold my hand; Kirsten just stares ahead, an uncanny combination of bored and alert.

An opening in the curtains I wasn't even aware of splits with a flourish and I'm ready to start panicking, but it's an anti-climax. A boy comes through balancing some platters on his arms, which he sets down on the 'table'.

“Pierogi,” he announces cheerfully, “cabbage rolls, and some pound cake. There'll be tea in a minute.”

“Thank you, Kamil,” Aran smiles, with slightly more familiarity than the one he gives the rest of us. “Will you be joining us?”

“Give me a minute,” says Kamil, “I'll be right there.”

Kamil vanishes back through the curtain, and Aran relaxes, but only slightly. I can see a tiny crease between his eyebrows, and it's almost invisible but it offsets the rest of the calmness of his face. He takes a pierogi and bites it absently. Pierre squeezes my hand.

“There is no need to hesitate,” Aran says when he's finished his bite, gesturing at the food. “Kamil is an excellent cook. He was my friend at Lacrimosa.”

I take a cabbage roll if only to ease my nerves. It's dripping with tomato sauce and has a meaty kind of filling, and it's delicious despite being an unorthodox breakfast. Still, any breakfast at all is better than none. Pierre's hand follows mine and he takes one. Kirsten opts for the pound cake. Her bites leave a glossy pink sheen in their wake where her lipstick rubs off.

As Kirsten produces a compact mirror and a lipstick tube out of nowhere, I become aware of some stomping from somewhere behind us. Someone- a very gruff-sounding someone- yells at Kamil to hurry up with the tea, and his response is barely audible. Kirsten clicks the lipstick tube shut with a sigh.

The partition is pulled apart with force, and what seems to be a giant bat storms into the area, but it's not a giant bat- it's an adult man, dressed in black. He's tall enough on his own, but wears a top hat that towers above the rest of us. He has on a suit, and there's a cape tossed around his shoulders, but it's all in tatters and covered in a slight layer of filth. Most prominent of all is his scowl, a great big chasm on his battered face.

Once I get past that detail, I notice his eyes- the blue of them is like a bullet on their bloodshot surfaces. His hair is pulled away from his face in a greasy, fried rat's-tail, and it's a dark blonde, like dishwater. Like mine.

Pierre squeezes my hand so hard I think he might rip it clean off. I'd welcome the distraction if he did.

“Sir Br-” Aran's voice breaks mid-name, and his gaze briefly flickers towards me. “Sir Ezekiel. Sir Ezekiel, please sit down.”

“No chairs?” he grumbles. “Surely you kids had to have found some goddamned chairs. That woman robbed me of house and home, and you can't even bring back any proper chairs?”

I can feel sweat crawling down my face. Aran's forehead is starting to look shiny, too. I have to beg myself not to start trembling. He hasn't noticed me sitting there yet, and kneels down on other side of Aran, protesting all the way. Finn's face is the next to lose its colour.

“Who else are we expecting?” he demands, crossing his arms.

“Um, Kamil, sir,” says Aran. “There might be somebody else, but he wasn't... well, I didn't get a definite answer. That's it.”

“Just Kamil?” he retorts. “Couldn't you get anybody else to come, for heaven's sake?”

“Not many people are keen on the idea,” Aran mutters.

“Keen,” he echoes mockingly, “keen? And what kind of _keen_ turn-out have we got here, Aran? There's you, Finn, Kamil when he gets back with the damn tea, Kirsten, and...”

His glare turns on both Pierre and myself. I feel a peculiar urge to break down in tears.

“Aran, who the hell are these two?”

“Sir...” Aran's face turns from troubled to completely baffled, and he looks at Pierre as if asking for help.

“Pierre Snowling and Marianne Brockett,” Pierre responds, with a tone that could cut steel. “Perhaps you recognise us. Sir.” His spine is incredibly straight for once, and he's wearing a glare the bitchiness of which could make Kirsten run for her money. Judging by Kirsten's reaction next to me it probably is.

For a moment there's an absolutely crushing silence, and I start to long for oblivion.

The partition opens again with a noisy clatter; Kamil sets down two trays on the table. “Tea!” he proclaims. “Chai for you, Aran, no milk the way you like it- Finn, there's some milk and sugar there for you- Miss Kirsten, I found some of that royal milk stuff you like, there's some honey there for you too- Marianne, Pierre, are you guys okay with plain black tea? Okay, cool. Ezekiel, there's some coffee.”

I'm overcome with a curious urge to start screaming at the top of my lungs. Kamil sits down with a big smile, which is quick to fade.

“Aran,” Ezekiel says very slowly, “is this your idea of a joke?”

“No, sir,” Aran responds, without making eye contact. “Didn't you ask us to find Marianne and Pierre in the first place? Uh, sir.”

“You did, Ezekiel, sir,” Kirsten frowns, “so what's the problem?”

Aran makes a gesture at her. Kirsten turns to gaze at me, and then she turns to gaze at Ezekiel, who glares right back.

“Oh,” she murmurs. “Oohhhh.”

My urge to start crying returns and is waging war with my urge to scream. The sweat is pooling into my temples and I don't think it's because it's hot in here.

“My daughter looks nothing like that,” Ezekiel grumbles. “Even Kirsten looks more like my daughter than she does. Aran, you idiot, you got the wrong girl.”

It's like being punched. Or like being slapped. Or kicked in the knees. Actually, it's like all three. Both urges disintegrate and leave me without the ability to say anything in my defence, jaw hanging slightly open.

“Sir, it's not a mistake,” Aran says. His cup is poised in his hand but he doesn't seem to have any intention of drinking from it. “That's Marianne Brockett.”

My family issues have gone from being something I privately shared with Pierre yesterday to the subject of debate at a table full of strangers and acquaintances. The shame is like shackles around my wrists and ankles.

“Yeah, pre'y sure that's her,” Finn chips in.

“That's Marianne,” Kirsten chimes in fiercely, “that's your _daughter_ , you moron. Sir.”

“And which part of the river did you all fish her out of?” Ezekiel retorts. “It doesn't make any sense, and I won't hear of it. Look around you. My daughter lived with Cassiopia. There's no way in hell Cassiopia would keep her in that house looking like _that._ ”

He gestures at me, but at which part of me I'm not sure; it could be my hair, my tan, my awful clothes. Whichever one it is is making me want to die.

“She didn't-” my voice barely makes it out as a murmur- “she didn't-”

The ropes of yesterday had nothing on the grip Pierre has on my hand now. “Perhaps you'll have a better time recognising me, Ezekiel.” His voice is no less than venomous now. “I'm Pierre Snowling. Does that ring any bells for you, Ezekiel? Son of the esteemed Warren Snowling, the esteemed _late_ Warren Snowling- perhaps you might know him?”

I don't know what's going on here but it feels like a nightmare. I can't look up anymore. Kirsten folds her chubby arm around my free one, which helps, but only slightly.

Ezekiel doesn't speak for a minute, but I can't see his face. “Enough of this idiocy,” he declares, “I've important business to be getting on with. Again, Aran, please tell me these aren't the only people we have who want to fight back against Gawain.”

“They are, sir,” Aran responds with a stoicism I can only admire and not replicate. “Not many are willing to fight, sir. Many are exhausted or drained, some are injured, and the majority have lost friends or family in those raids. It's a sensitive topic, sir. Many prefer safety.”

“Rubbish,” Ezekiel declares, “absolute rubbish. We won't get anywhere like this.”

“We have to!” Kirsten cries. “That man Gawain isn't going to just _wait_ for us to persuade more people to go, we've got to go as we are!”

“Can't you just deal with your brother yourself?” I don't think Pierre's blinked even once this whole time.

For a moment I swear Ezekiel flinches. “Don't ask such stupid questions.”

“Don't you know where he is?” Pierre asks. “Wouldn't you know, better than anybody else?”

“No!” Ezekiel snaps. “He's hidden himself in a labyrinth. Nobody knows where he is.”

“Hiding away, hm?” Pierre's voice doesn't even sound like his own anymore. His face is like a frosty mask, but his one arched eyebrow is betraying all of his anger. “Must be a brotherly trait.”

“Pierre,” I find myself mumbling into his ear, “please, don't start arguing with him.”

“I'm not going to,” he responds at a level Ezekiel doesn't quite catch, “I'm just going to defend your honour, is all.”

Before I can react another boy steps into the area, and I start to feel a bit outnumbered- I don't know about Kirsten. The soft footsteps from his sensible shoes shatter the tension like an arrow. I'm mostly just distracted by his hair- it's a bright, shocking blue.

“Oh, is the meeting on already?” the boy says with a casual air that doesn't quite match the plumminess of his accent. “Well, shit. Sorry I'm late.” We're all frozen as he goes to sit down, and he chooses the seat next to Pierre, probably the second-worst person to sit next to at the moment. None of us say a word.

“You two are from yesterday,” he points out. “My name is Alec Valmont. You don't know me, I'm from Bagnold's. Anyway, Aran, I was debating coming here, but I decided it'd be best if I did. My father's one of Gawain's main henchmen, after all, so I thought I could give you some information if you needed it.”

“Thank you, Alec,” Aran says, face barely moving. “That would be much appreciated.”

“I don't know if you've heard of Father Samuel,” Alec says airily to nobody in particular. “He's the pastor responsible for making Merrowlake the way it is. I think he tipped off the forces to raid Bagnold's, too. Anyway, just so you know, I don't have any personal investment in him. If you guys want to go and storm Gawain's base, you can beat him up on your way and I'll be perfectly happy.”

He seems to take note of the silence, but not the reasoning for it.

“Rather weighty, this,” he notes, and then he turns away from us. “So, Ezekiel, I have an extremely important question. A burning question, even.”

“I don't want to hear it,” Ezekiel says.

“It's about Greg, you see.” Alec is starting to channel Pierre. “You know about Greg, don't you? I've been dying to talk to you about Greg. Tell me about Greg, Ezekiel, you know who he is, you mentioned him. Where's Greg, Ezekiel? Greg is alive, isn't he?”

Ezekiel just glares at him and takes a noisy slurp of coffee.

“Greg?” Pierre echoes, blinking at last. “You don't mean-”

“Kind of tall?” I ask, finally regaining my ability to speak now that the conversation has nothing to do with me. “Very tall, actually? Brown bristly hair, a bit of stubble, dark eyes? Let's see, what else- oh, yeah, healing magic? Does your Greg have healing magic? I know Greg's a fairly common name, but we've met one and-”

“Good fucking God,” Alec cuts me off, “that's Greg, alright. You saw him? Where was he?”

“Well, initially, in a log cabin on the path into Merrowlake,” Pierre states matter-of-factly. “He was very kind, actually. At the moment, though- I'm... not actually sure.”

Shit, we did kind of leave him in Greenbough with Amity Reilly, didn't we?

“Somewhere around the village,” I pick up for him. “As of last night, anyway.”

“The village?” Alec's face distorts. “Greg's in the village? But that's completely unsafe! God knows that crazy gun-toting woman could be prowling round there right this minute! What the hell are we doing just- _sitting_ in here, debating? What if she gets Greg?”

“Is it really any different to the hundreds upon thousands she's already _'got'_?” Ezekiel asks, thumping his cup back onto the tray. Kamil flinches. “We're not making any rash decisions just for the sake of one person, so forget it, Valmont.”

“Could'a sworn youse was saying we should all get out there and fight a minnit ago,” Finn mutters. Kamil nods.

“Aran, is this a discussion you've brought me into, or a godforsaken interrogation squad?” Ezekiel snaps. “This is ridiculous, I won't be involved in this any longer. You sort this out yourselves.”

Ezekiel stands up, not bothering to brush out the rumples in his already very rumpled clothes, and clears off, grumbling to himself. Every single harsh syllable makes my innards shudder, but I'm quite glad to see the back of him once he vanishes back into the curtain. I breathe a sigh of relief I wasn't even aware I was holding in.

There's a silence for a minute which only Aran is composed enough to break.

“It seems we've been left to our own devices.”

“What did he even save us all for if he hates us so much?” Kamil mutters, looking more dejected than angry.

“Do you still want to fight?” Aran asks. “Of course, I don't want to discourage you, but it may be a lot more difficult without Ezekiel.”

“Difficult?” Finn snorts. “Bloke's got a dam' peg-leg! He walks like a pirate!”

I didn't even notice the peg-leg. I'm put off from shifting guiltily where I sit by Kirsten, who is shifting guiltily where she sits and requires more space to do it.

“I don't even care if I die out there, or get my soul ripped out, or whatever,” Alec states, “I don't even care if I have to rot in hell all my life, I'm going out there.”

“I'll come wif you,” Finn agrees. “I wan' test out my new machine. It's indestructible, don't-cha know?”

“I feel bad not doing anything,” Kamil says, “and if I have to make that rotten-tempered Ezekiel one more mug of coffee I'll scream.”

“Mm,” says Kirsten. She's gone pale, and has unlinked her arm from mine.

“I think I should go out there and fight, but,” Pierre turns to me, “I'm not leaving you, Marianne. Do you want to go?”

“It's not like I have anything else to do,” I say. “No family reunions, that's for sure.” He gives me a sad look.

“Given there's so few of us,” Aran says, “we could probably just leave by ourselves and leave everybody else here relatively soon. I maintain that we should at least prepare first, however.”

“I feel filthy,” Kirsten says, her voice trembling. “Aran, where are the baths? I need to get clean.”

“Take the first partition on your left, and then the one on the right. There are two.”

“I think I might go with you, Kirsten,” I tell her. “I'm probably much filthier than you are.”

“I'll draw us up some water, then,” she says suddenly, and gets up and leaves.

Alec is soon to follow her, and leaves in a different direction. Finn and Kamil leave next, yammering about things. Aran rises but doesn't leave, and we stand up too.

“Marianne,” he says, “I'm sorry about your father.”

“As am I,” says Pierre.

“Had I known he would be this way, I probably would have...”

“Don't worry about it,” I tell him, and I start to make my way out. “Don't take all his yelling and bitching to heart, either. I think you're doing a good job, Aran. Considering the circumstances.”

Then I have to leave, because tears are starting to drip down my face again, and I desperately have to wash it all off.

 


	17. Buried

For the longest time I just lie there in the warm bathwater, letting myself get soaked. I think I fall into a kind of trance in there- all I can do is stare at the ceiling and try not to cry. The words and the gestures, they all just keep repeating themselves. _You've got the wrong girl._ How could he?

I can hear Kirsten saying things but I can't hear the words. She managed to claim one of Cassiopia's claw-foot tubs before I got there and is on a higher level than I am; I'm saddled with the big tin container I recognise from the scullery that I used to take baths in before I just decided to stick to the showers at Drysdell's. I don't feel any more clean than I was before. If I look down at myself all I can see is bruises, sunburn and leg hair. I was aware of being kind of ratty-looking before, but it's never bothered me this much.

Being next to Kirsten is grating on me even more after that remark about how she looked more like his daughter than I did. Because she doesn't- his appearance has fallen into just as much disarray as my own, and she has us both beat by a million miles for beauty. I saw a glimpse of her when I was getting into the bath, and she looked like a painting, fleshy and curvy and generous, all shiny from the water. But I didn't get excited, I just got sad.

“Kirsten, do you have a razor?” I ask.

“What do you want a razor for?” she replies from above, sounding mystified.

“For shaving,” I reply. I'm not sure what else she thinks I want one for.

“No,” she says. And then, “sorry.”

“My legs look terrible,” I say, but I can't think of any kind of analogy to elaborate with.

“I'm sure they're not that bad,” she says. “Don't tell me you're feeling insecure because of all that stuff your father said?”

“That's exactly what I'm feeling,” I say, lowly.

“Oh, heavens,” she sighs, “why would you care, Marianne? Look at the man, he looked like he just crawled out of a rubbish dump.”

“But he's my dad,” I tell her. I try and be emphatic about it, but my voice goes all wheedly at the last second.

“That doesn't mean his opinion is important,” she sniffs. “I mean, _my_ daddy- er, dad tells me I shouldn't wear so much makeup, but I don't listen to him, do I? Felina liked watching me put it all on. I do it for her.”

“I don't suppose you could lend me some?” I ask.

“Marianne, we're completely different shades, and you've got yellow undertones whereas I have pink,” she sighs, “so don't even bother. Anyway, Pierre is important to you at the moment, correct?”

“I mean, yeah, he is, but what's he got to do with it?” I run my hand through a knot in my hair and only succeed in making it worse.

“If there's anyone you should be trying to impress at the moment, then, it should be him, and I don't even think he cares about how you look,” she explains. “I mean, heaven knows if you rolled out of here wearing nothing but a potato sack he'd probably still worship you.”

“Worship?” Now I'm just confused. “You think he does that?”

“Well, obviously,” she scoffs. “Goodness, has that mind-parasite of yours made you blind, too? He adores you, he's adored you for years. I'm the last person you want to ask about boys and even I know that. He looks at you like you're a goddess. You should keep all that leg hair, he probably finds it to be a turn-on.”

Blood rushes to my cheeks- I can only think of the colour I'm turning right now. I wouldn't have even imagined it, but somehow it doesn't feel like it's news.

“Seriously?” I ask. “How do you know?”

“Oh, please,” she sighs, “everyone knows. What were you two doing alone in that storage room yesterday night, anyway, hmm? No need to feign innocence with me, Marianne.”

“It's not what you think,” I blurt out. “Trust me, if we'd had sex, I'd probably be in a much better mood than I am-”

“Ha!” Her laugh is ear-splittingly loud, and for a moment I get paranoid that someone's going to hear. “Point taken. I can't understand why you'd want to have sex with a boy, myself, but never mind. Give him a couple of days and he'll be all over you.” She turns over and I hear the water crashing. Some of it drips over the edge. “Must be nice for some.”

The voice that was mocking and cynical is now just cynical. “What are you going to do about Felina, Kirsten?”

“I don't know,” she responds.

“Are you going to go and face Gawain?” I ask.

“I don't know,” she responds, and the water stirs again as she rises to get out of the tub. She unpins her hair from a plastic cap she's put on, and the curls spill down her back. For a minute she just sits there on the edge, completely naked and dripping water all over the floor.

“You don't know?” I echo. “What do you mean, you don't know? Don't you want to get Felina back?”

“Of course I do,” she says.

“Then you should go,” I say, trying to be as gentle as possible. “You should try. For her.”

She drops her arms by her sides, and walks over to a floor-length mirror on the other side of the room. Our clothes are in two stacks besides it, but she doesn't even touch her pile. She kneels down and reaches for her makeup case, bringing it out of nowhere. “Lord, lord,” she sighs, “listening to the lot of you talking about things being difficult and not being able to do much. You don't know the half of it.”

“What do you mean?” I'm having to lean over the tub to try and glean her expression. It's not working, and all I'm doing is flashing her, because my chest is considerably less afflicted by gravity than hers. I retreat back down.

“I'm a bit like you, Marianne,” she laughs bitterly, “I only got into Drysdell's because of money. I don't get very good grades. I kept a low profile at school. Having Felina around helped- people didn't notice at how bad at stuff I was, because they were too busy marveling at how good she was. I suppose I didn't, either. She'd do everything for me.”

“I'm sure it's not like that,” I point out. “I mean, you can actually use magic, can't you? You're a step above me, that's for certain.”

“I don't suppose you'd remember,” she says, twiddling one of her ringlets round a chubby finger. “When Felina first cropped up here, you and I were responsible for her. The only reason she can speak our language is because we passed on all the knowledge our parents were teaching us at the time, and for some reason you understood her attempts to communicate better than I did. We helped her clear that hurdle- then she was clearing hurdles all on her own, and _then_ she became the inter-school athletics champion! And it became her helping _me_ with my homework, letting me copy her answers, all that.”

“Kirsten, you're not jealous of her, are you?” I ask. “You two are together, right? You can't be jealous of her if you're together, that's basic knowledge. You'll start harbouring all this resentment and ill-will and it'll be like poison-”

“It's not that,” she cuts me off, “I'm just useless without her. That memory you got back was about the time we tried to rescue you from your stepmother's wedding, wasn't it? Ever since then I started getting premonitions that the lap of luxury I was born into wasn't so luxurious at all, and that something dark was on the horizon. She'd be the only one at my side reassuring me when I used to wake up in cold sweats in the middle of the night. I was right about all that stuff, in the end. And the ability to say _'I told you so'-_ it's all I have left _._ ”

“Kirsten, what actually is your magic?” I ask. “Like, put aside your self-esteem issues for a minute. I understand, I do, but just give me the facts.”

“You've seen the pocket-dimension stuff,” she says, “but that's useless, I only keep my hair and makeup stuff in there. I know how to do most of the stuff they taught us at Drysdell's, like the light trick and restoring broken things, but I really struggle with dueling spells, they just blow up in my face. I also tried this thing recently with powder, something about being able to touch up my makeup without so much effort, but it just ended up exploding everywhere in the girl's showers. I think I gave somebody an asthma attack.”

“Maybe it was because you were strutting around naked like you are now,” I point out. She immediately yelps and makes a grab for her clothes. “But on a serious note, that doesn't sound useless. Not the powder thing, anyway. You could use that as a defence thing. I'm pretty sure there's a species of bug that can produce exploding powders.”

It's the great spotted wheatfly, actually, but I don't want to sound like some kind of nerd who researches bugs in her spare time.

“Great,” she moans, pulling on her stockings, “I'm an insect.”

“Insects are fucking cool, so don't complain,” I tell her. “Anyway, I'm pretty sure the exploding powder thing works, or at least it does in the insect world. You've got a fighting chance, so take it. You've just got to use your head and think.”

She gets preoccupied with several layers of undergarments before she replies. “I'm not sure how good I am at that.”

“Don't even bother worrying about how good you are or aren't,” I say. My skin's starting to prune, so I get out of the bath too. Unlike Kirsten, I have the good sense to use the towel sitting next to me. “Just do it. If Pierre got his soul ripped out I'd at least want to die knowing I made some kind of attempt to save him. Nobody's expecting a sixteen-year-old to take down Gawain. Just find Felina and get her back.”

“I suppose that's what I'll have to do, then,” she smiles wryly. “If my love for Felina got outclassed by yours for Pierre when you two haven't even officially done it yet, could I ever forgive myself?” She pulls on her dress, buttoning it all the way down, and then picks up the blue ribbon from the floor. Grinning widely now, she scoops her hair to the top of her head and ties it up with the ribbon, finishing it in a neat bow. “Thank you, Marianne. I suppose I needed somebody to talk some sense into me.”

“Think nothing of it,” I say.

“Stop by Oliver's when all this is dealt with,” she tells me, walking out of the room, “and I'll see if I can't get you an outfit which will knock his socks straight off.”

“Thanks, Kirsten,” I smile. “Wait, figuratively knock them off, or literally?” But she's already left.

Whatever. I can't wander out there in just a towel, so I start to dress again. Putting on my own clothes is a much simpler process than Kirsten's; I only have one layer of underwear to worry about, for starters. It's more like a ritual that I've gotten used to, one that never changes no matter how hard I try to alter it, or whose bedroom I'm in. I can't make these clothes look good in any sort of arrangement, so I just don't try.

There's just one interruption to the deja-vu- when I've come to the end of the pile, there's a shiny golden object there.

I inspect it. It's a pocket watch, a spherical one that opens out into two domes. I have no idea how it got here, but still it feels so familiar. I rack my brains for its origin, and eventually find it, a footnote to the terror of the other day when Marion was in control all over again: Professor Lovejoy's watch, the one she dropped.

How on earth is it here? The diary, at least, was something I took with us. Marion completely forgot about the pocket watch shortly after she was left with it. Even if she did miraculously remember to slip it into the clothes bag, we still left that at Greg's- even still, there were a million opportunities for it to go missing. Marion got dragged underwater by a river kraken, for heaven's sake. Yet here it is, glimmering at the bottom of my pile of clothes like some desperate sentimental trinket. And Professor Lovejoy, Professor Lovejoy- she had acted so odd at the time, ignoring Marion when she tried to get her attention, or had that been me? Was this watch another one of her cryptic ways of helping me, the same way the diary was and didn't end up being?

Internal monologue isn't giving me any answers. I look inside the watch for some other clue, though Professor Lovejoy wasn't famous for being generous with clues. I hope for some kind of nice elucidating letter along the lines of _'Hi Marianne, or Marion, whomever it may concern- I know you're bothered about being a non-magician so here's a pocket watch that transforms into a semi-automatic rifle in case you ever find yourself in a spot of bother, xoxo your favourite teacher'_ but of course there's nothing like that in there.

The lower hemisphere of the watch is nothing overly thrilling- it's a normal watch face, ticking away. The only remarkable thing about it is that it brings the fact that it's midday already to my attention, and I can't help but wonder where all the time is going.

The upper hemisphere is weirder. It bears today's date: the 19th of June, 1999. That's not the weird part, though. There are two buttons each next to the day, month and year tickers. It's the same for each one- one button bears a plus sign, and the other a minus. This is the part I don't get, because why would you ever need to adjust the date manually? I know Professor Lovejoy liked her antiques, but this just seems ridiculously impractical in a world full of clocks that need no winding or even gears. Why would she leave this to me? An attempt to appeal to my staunchly non-magical sensibilities? Does it even still work? I press the 'minus' button next to the year, just to find out.

Then everything goes black.

 


	18. the Time

I haven't fainted. That's the worrying part.

I've just fallen asleep at my desk.

There's that same powdery smell, both sharp and soft, of roses and dust. A textbook. The word 'slut' is carved into the wood, which could have been from anyone. I expect my head to feel heavy but it doesn't, it feels full of air. I look up. Classmates on the rows in front are starting to turn around and stare- there's Juniper over by the side. At the front, Professor Lovejoy is looking at me expectantly.

I notice the date on the blackboard. _June 19_ _th_ , _1998_.

Oh, shit.

Ohhhh, shit.

“Marianne, dear,” Professor Lovejoy says, “if you could answer the question, please?”

“Question?” Oh, god, oh god oh god oh god. “What question?” I have plenty of questions of my own. I'm not prepared to start answering anyone else's. Shit, shit, shit.

“The question I asked just now, sweetheart.” Her patience wavers only slightly. “Could you tell us why steam technology became obsolete when Ginnheiser managed to apply magic to machinery?”

“Uh...” That's last year's syllabus. Sweet lord, that's last year's syllabus. “Humidity?”

Some people start giggling. Sweat is pouring down my forehead. I don't know what to do. I think I might have traveled back in time a year. I need to get back to where I was. Where's that damned watch?

“That's not the answer, dear,” Professor Lovejoy says, “we read it in the textbook. It's because-”

“Professor-” I don't mean to interrupt her but I can't help it. “Professor Lovejoy, is the date on the board correct?”

She looks at it, then back at me, and frowns. “Yes, Marianne. The date is correct.”

“Oh, fuck.” The words come out on cue. More people are giggling. Some at the back of the room are outright guffawing. “Professor, Professor, I- I can't be here, I have to go, I can't stay-”

“Why's that?” she asks, puzzled. “Marianne, if you have an appointment, the given thing to do is to-”

“I'm so sorry,” I manage, disentangling myself from my chair as fast as I can. “I'm so, so sorry.” I run out of the classroom at the highest speed my legs can carry me, and I make sure to slam the door with emphasis to give me a head-start before anyone starts following.

I can hear the classroom erupt with laughter even when I make it to the opposite end of the corridor, and it's followed by Professor Lovejoy raising her voice- which she barely ever did.

I already feel bad. I've read books about time-travel- fictional ones, obviously- and it's the central moral of them all, not to change things when you go back in the past, because even the tiniest little thing can have a knock-on effect and distort the future irreparably. I hope to every deity I can think of that this minor lapse in status quo doesn't make the future even worse than I already know it to be.

I don't know where I'm going to go, I just know I need privacy. I can feel the small sphere of the pocket watch in my left boot, so at least that hasn't been lost.

Master Drysdell emerges from his office to yell at me for running in the hallways, but I ignore him. I even relish the sound of his voice somewhat, since I know a year from now he'll have had his soul ripped out. I dodge any attempt to subdue me with magic- not that I know there is one, but there could be- by ducking into the girls' bathrooms. Master Drysdell's main weakness is his inability to deal with women. This is one of those facts that, no matter how insignificant, stays with you, and I know it'll buy me at least ten minutes before he starts hammering at the door.

Regrettably, I'm not entirely alone when I get in. Some of the older girls are hanging by the windows; one is smoking a novelty cigarette that smells like incense, and the others are peering into a mirror re-applying various articles of makeup. I try not to attract any attention when I get in, but that's easier said than done. I lock myself inside one of the toilet cubicles, and I can hear murmuring.

“Was that Marion Brockett right now?”

“Chicken biscuit.”

“Should we go somewhere else?”

“Nah, let's stand our ground. Who's she against us, anyway?”

I can't even be bothered to offer a response. I have to get back to the present. I can't just spontaneously disappear into the past when things have to be done. I dig the watch out from my boot- thankfully still intact despite my running- and the minute hand has only moved forward by about five, but it's still too much time to waste. I have to set the year right again, I have to- but in my panic I press the 'plus' button twice.

 

Everything goes black again, but when I think my eyes are open there's really not much of a difference. Everything is dark. I think I'm outside judging by the air, but it's difficult to tell.

I try and grope around for something physical, and end up dislodging something. I push harder, and it rolls away, giving me a chink of light. I clamber into it, and it transpires that I was trapped under some fallen trees. 'Fallen' seems redundant, though, because the entire forest around me seems to have been totally uprooted. The grass is no longer green, and is a sort of purple colour like veins through skin. Nothing seems alive. There's a consistent reek of ashes, and it's stinging at my eyes.

The nothingness is disturbed by a great crackle in the sky, like thunder. I look up and see all of the colours that skies generally aren't- bruise-violet and sickly green. After the crack comes bellowing, loud bellowing which sounds like it could come from a man, if the average man was the size of a building. Some even louder noises ensue, so loud they tear past the limits of my hearing and just sound like tinny echoes of something very far away. Light starts to flash in and out of the clouds that brew, and then some droplets splash down to the ground. Soon the droplets come down in droves, scarlet droves, and they dye everything they touch red. I'm too late to duck and get caught in the downpour. The 'rain' rolls down my face in rivulets. Some of it falls onto my lips. It tastes vaguely metallic. The watch is still in my boot, and I reach for it.

I decide it's high time to get the fuck out of here.

 

I jolt back into place in front of the mirror very abruptly and I couldn't be more relieved to be here. Same smoky air, same damp hair as before. My heart is thumping; it feels like my whole body is convulsing.

Professor Lovejoy left me a time-travelling watch. What was a time-travelling watch doing in her possession in the first place? Why did she leave it with me? What did she possibly think I could stand to gain from going back in time? And if she thought I was going to benefit from it, why leave it to me before she left Drysdell's, and not a bit sooner? And what the hell happened in the future? I could choke on all these questions.

“Marianne?” It's Pierre again, at the partition. “May I come in?"

“Yeah, sure,” I say, still unable to really grasp what the hell just happened.

He kind of shuffles into the room, covering his eyes.

“Dude, I've got clothes on,” I say.

“Oh,” he says, and takes his hand away from his face- not that there's much of a difference. “I was just wondering if you were alright. You've been in here for a long time.”

Do I tell him? I know I can trust him, but do I really want to bring up something like _that_ at an important time?

“Pierre, I was just wondering,” I begin, “if you remember- oh, I suppose it was probably a year ago now, wasn't it?” I'm trying to be casual but my expression is shaking. “I spaced out in the middle of one of Professor Lovejoy's lessons and then ran out of the room at top speed. D'you remember what happened after that?”

He strolls over to me, looking pensive, and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Juniper found you later in the restrooms having had a panic attack. I was awfully worried, and I wanted to ask after you to see if you were alright, but you know the way things were.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah. I remember now.” I nod, perhaps a bit too much. “Thanks, Pierre. I think- I kind of zoned out for a minute there and was on track to remembering something else, but I snapped out of it too early.” Which is bullshit, and I feel bad for lying, but I don't want to spring the whole time-travel thing on him at a moment like this.

“Well, I'm glad you're alright.” He smiles down at me like an angel, and it's then I remember what Kirsten said. “I've been talking to the others- Alec, mostly. He's very interesting. We're all on your side, Marianne.”

“That's nice to know.” It's getting harder to pay full attention to him- I keep thinking about what Kirsten said, and then what he said last night, though the latter is kind of blurry now.

“I mean it. When this is over, Marianne, don't feel like you have to go back to him. The Snowling family- or what's left of us, anyway- will welcome you with open arms. That's a promise.”

 _When this is over_ \- Kirsten said the same thing. It makes me wonder what _this_ is, and when people think it's going to be done with. “Thanks, Pierre. It means a lot.”

There's an awkward silence for a minute where it's clear he's come to get me so we can join the others but is too polite to actually say so, and I can't pick up on my own slack because that strange feeling from this morning's come back and I'm distracted. It's his legs, this time: even when I'm on the floor and he's looming above me I don't feel uncomfortable, even though I usually would.

“Pierre, you feel different,” I blurt out on accident. “Like, you haven't changed, yourself, but the air around you has.” I'm not sure what I'm saying, but I'm saying it anyway.

“The air around me,” he repeats, in bemusement. “How has it changed, Marianne?”

“I- well, actually, I don't know.” I regret opening my mouth. “It's just- well, um. Ever since I woke up this morning I feel like I know you a lot better than I did yesterday night, even though it's not like I've learned much more about you.” He cocks his head. “I mean, not that I mean that in, y'know, a bitchy way. You can be mysterious and stuff, that's your thing, it's okay. That's just how it is.” A little drop of water eases its way down a strand of hair hanging over my face and splash-lands on the tip of my nose. I shiver much more than is technically necessary. “Just- never mind. Let's go join everyone else, eh?”

I get up in a hurry to start walking and almost bump straight into him, because he hasn't moved. A slow sort of smile, like last night, is crawling across his face again. His one visible eye has lit up, and he looks so pretty I start wishing I could see the Other Eye again. “Marianne, I think that's lovely,” he says, quite quietly. “And I'm glad.”

“Oh, thank heavens,” I sigh, “because I don't know what the fuck I'm on about.”

He chuckles, and lifts my chin up to meet his eye with a single finger. “I understand,” he says, “really, I do. There's no need to be embarrassed.”

The things Kirsten said are repeating themselves so loudly she may as well be yelling into my ear now. He's right. There's no need to be embarrassed. I shove my insecurities aside for a minute, and try to think as just Marianne, just a blob of consciousness with thoughts and feelings and none of that ratty shell. My unshaven legs are probably a turn-on for him. There really is no need to be embarrassed.

I look him in the eye for one sustained moment. Technically we're in a rush to leave, but in this split-second, this microcosm of time, this baby step towards that potential apocalypse where it rains blood, I'm in no rush at all. I take his temple with my hand- his bone structure is so particular and peculiar, not masculine nor feminine. The second his facial expression starts to change, and he parts his mouth to say my name again with that funny raised inflection, I cut him off and kiss him straight on the lips.

Midway through the kiss I realise a bit tragically that I'm not quite blessed with the same finesse that he showed me the day before. I don't actually have any recollection of whether this is my first or not. The confidence I leaned forward with is disintegrating at a rapid pace. I try to make up for my lack of grace and lack of knowing what I'm doing with raw enthusiasm. He doesn't taste of much. His lips are quite cold, but they're very delicate. After a while I make the decision to step away so I don't end up mutilating him by accident.

When I look back up at him he's gone a very unfamiliar shade of pink- not like the pink of Professor Lovejoy's office, not like the pink of Kirsten's lipstick. The only shade I can compare it to is one of some sunset sometime somewhere, a pink so strong it burns and dominates everything else. He's clasped a hand over his mouth.

“For luck, y'know,” I mutter.

He nods, lowering the hand a bit. He mouths something that might be the word 'yes', but he doesn't make a sound. In many ways his expression hasn't altered much from before, it's just turned fuchsia, but that doesn't stop the guilt that springs on me next.

“I'm going to go out now,” I say, as matter-of-factly as I can manage. For a moment I'm glad I'm tanned- I feel like I'm going the same colour as him, but it shows up on him as clearly as spilled ink on a new page. “I'm going to- uh- I'm going to see if I can put Molly somewhere safe. And-” I search my head for miscellanies- “Juniper's cardigan. I think we should bring that with us.”

“Okay, Marianne. If you want to do that, then you should.” His voice is as light as spun sugar, and I have to break eye contact. Something seems to grab at my heart, yanking and clawing at it, and my whole body is seized by overwhelming pain for just half a second, but this is gone as soon as it came. It doesn't feel like a bad ache, but it's an ache nonetheless and it's unfamiliar. I figure the best thing to do is leave, and I do, stumbling over my feet and brushing against the curtain partition. He doesn't follow.

 

I continue to stumble across the common-area of the tent and momentarily forget what I said I'd do before remembering. I proceed into the storage area without looking at anyone.

Our bedrolls have been neatened, though by who I don't know. The stuff we brought along is still here, and hasn't so much been tidied as aggregated together in a pile. Juniper's cardigan is sitting on top of Marion's diary. I reach out and touch it to take it, and the feeling of the wool and the lace breaks me out of my trance. Every stitch is wonderful. Not perfect, per se, but wonderful. I wonder briefly if I've ever hugged Juniper, but can't dredge any memories up. The cardigan is strange in that way- it's a familiar thing to look at but a strange thing to feel. It's baggier than I remember it as, or at least baggier than I remember Juniper's petite little frame being.

By some spark of thought which is somehow even less distinct than the thought that prompted me to kiss Pierre, I pull off the blue vest that I've always worn over my shirt, and throw it on the floor. The cardigan fits. It stops just a bit short of my wrists, but it fits. It still smells a bit like Juniper; floral shampoo, chalk dust, beeswax. But mostly it just smells of dust. I feel bad for every moment I've forgotten about her. I don't even know if she's still alive. She probably is, but I don't know _where_ she's alive, and that feels just the same.

Before I turn around to leave, I see Molly sitting there on top of a barrel with that nonplussed look. To her, what I do is only weird because I do it standing on two feet, talking in a language she doesn't speak. I'm grateful for that.

“You'll keep yourself safe, won't you?” I ask her. “In the meantime. I'll come back for you, I promise.”

She blinks. She understands.

“I love you,” I tell her. “I won't ever forget you exist again. And I'll start getting you proper food. No more rats. I promise.”

I don't pick up the diary. The diary can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned.

 

The crowd in the main space has thinned since we went to linger in it last. I find myself locating allies by hair- Kirsten's fusillade of ringlets and Alec's beacon of blue. Pierre is there too, but he's not as involved in their conversation.

I try and draw up to them without being awkward, but that's easier said than done. “Hello.”

“Oh, Marianne.” Kirsten acknowledges me as if we've just brushed past each other in the corridor. “Come and stand with us.” I don't bother telling her that's what I was doing already. I shuffle in closer to their circle by about half a footstep.

“So anyway, as I was saying,” Alec resumes from some invisible thread of conversation- “nobody knows where this Gawain man is. I don't even think my father does, and he works with him. I basically ransacked the whole house before I left, and only found a name, no addresses or even pictures. Nothing.”

“How odd,” Kirsten muses. “I hope at least Aran has a lead on him. If I'm going to go out there and fight I'd like to know where I'm actually going.”

I open my mouth to speak, remembering Cassiopia's letter I forgot from the other day, but something stops me, and it's not my personal filter this time. (It never is.) The next time I blink I see a flash of Felina against my eyelids. She speaks, but her voice stays with me longer than her vision does.

“ _Follow the roses.”_

And she's gone.

“We follow the roses,” I say on cue, louder than I intend.

They all go “what?” at me, but at different pitches and intervals.

“I don't know,” I shrug. “Felina just told me that.”

Alec goes “what?” again. Pierre nods.

“Felina,” Kirsten echoes. “Well, if she told you, it must be the right thing to do. What roses, though? Did she say?”

“No,” I reply, “just _the_ roses. I guess we'll know when we get out there.”

“Are you all ready to leave?” Aran's voice comes from behind. It is a shock and it isn't simultaneously. “I've prepared the spell for the tent. When we leave, it'll become invisible again, but it'll stay up.”

I refrain from asking how. We all agree in various mutters.

“Well, let's not leave this any longer.” I swear I trace some melancholy in his voice. “Nobody else is joining us. Maybe they will later.” He walks away to the entrance of the tent, which I haven't noticed thus far because it just seems to be a solid black archway. Someone's complaining very loudly in another room.

We begin to step forward and leave the tent. Kamil and Finn join us from the sides, offering no greetings. Aran holds the archway open- the blackness is fabric. Daylight eagerly pours in from the little gap, setting the gold embroidery on his tunic ablaze.

“You're all sure that you wish to do this,” he says slowly, more like a question than a statement.

I don't feel comfortable nodding but I don't feel comfortable re-thinking everything all of a sudden either. Nobody else seems sure, either, but I don't check. The complaining has directly moved from another room to our vicinity, and it's getting closer.

“For pity's sake, Aran, you can't be this stupid,” Ezekiel is shouting. “Really! Leaving! What on earth do you think you're _doing?_ ”

“Sir, this is no longer your decision to make.” Aran's face is stiff. “You distanced yourself from it yourself. You were leaving it to us- you said that. We're going, sir.”

“So your feelings got hurt,” he snarls, “so you don't like being corrected- and now you're going ahead with something as foolish as this? Behaviour like this isn't what led me to choose you to lead, Aran. In fact, I've completely forgotten what that was. Put that curtain down or so help me!”

He shoves past Kamil and seizes the fabric from Aran's hand. His ranting doesn't incite the same exact sensation of dread as last time. Something feels awfully wrong. There's a demon loose. Ezekiel is standing closest to the exit now. An extra layer of dirt on his clothes shows up in the light.

“Valmont, you said it yourself,” he snaps, “ _she_ is probably prowling around the village right now, and _she_ will probably delight in shooting you all to blazes. So you still think boldly stepping out into the open where she can see you is a good idea?”

“Worked larss' night,” Finn grumbles, scrunching up his nose.

“ _Larss' night_ there was something like a hundred and fifty of you,” Ezekiel retorts, “it was dark, and you outnumbered her. Today it's bright and there's six of you, and you're all deprived for an experienced combat mage. What chance do you expect to have? Bloody idiots.”

He does actually have a point, and none of us can argue against it, no matter how much we dislike him. I expect that we'll be shepherded back into the main space and sworn at, but Ezekiel goes the opposite direction to the one I anticipate. He yanks the partition aside and the outside world welcomes him in. Aran cries out and jumps out after him, and we all follow because we're not sure what's going on.

The sunlight is like a hard slap to the face and leaves me dazed. Ezekiel is trudging through the woods at a surprising speed for a man missing a leg. The air is so humid it becomes like a damp blanket over my mouth- breathing is difficult and I can't focus on my steps, I can only make them. I'm lagging behind. Everything seems like a dream.

Two loud bursts ring out and two shots splinter the air. The humidity seems to crack like glass. An almighty bellow, crossed with the pained wail of a small animal, rumbles beneath it. I notice a substance flying through the air. It falls on the dirt with a fat, red spatter.

Ezekiel is the next thing to fall.

 


	19. Love and Joy

He falls to the ground gradually, slowly, bit-by-bit, like a tower collapsing under lightning.

It clicks with me before it really happens that he's just been shot. The sounds are still ringing in my ears, bouncing around my head. It's impossible not to focus now. I know exactly what to do.

“Kirsten,” I yell, “the powder!”

She just screams. I run forward. A shot narrowly misses me. “The powder!” I yell again.

I haul Ezekiel's body from the ground. He's too heavy for me to carry fully and I have to sling him over my shoulder. There's a messy crater in his shoulder; blood is trickling down his cape. Kirsten fumbles around, yelping, and a huge cloud of dust blossoms out and envelopes us all. Several more shots go off but they only graze, never connecting. I try to yell something at Pierre but can't open my mouth for all the powder. He seems to understand the look I give him anyway and forces everyone's hands together.

Some last bullets hit the ground before we leave.

 

We break formation immediately when we land, falling apart and sputtering. We're all covered in a faint, shimmery layer of white, as though we've just broken out of a snow-globe. Everything smells of either lilacs, talc or blood.

There's not a single cloud in the sky; the grass on the hill we've arrived on is vivid green and fluffy. I can no longer handle Ezekiel's weight and have to heap him onto the floor, which I try to do gently, but fail. Pierre puts his hand on my shoulder, but doesn't utter a single word. After the initial post-teleport fallout the others realise what's just happened and crowd back in again, uttering various cries of dismay. I can't think of what to say, but apparently Ezekiel can. His lips are starting to move; all the other parts of him are frozen.

“Marianne,” he manages, his words all but crawling out of his throat, “I can't stand to look at you.”

“I know,” I say. The insult doesn't even feel like an insult anymore. “You've said.”

“You remind me of what a coward I was,” he says, “and what a fool.”

Pierre's hand feels rather cold. Everyone's gone quiet.

“I don't care about any of that,” I say. I'm trying so hard to keep myself together but my voice is cracking. “I just wanted you to be my dad.”

“Did you?” The left corner of his now slack-jawed mouth jerks upwards in what might be a smile, but I'm not sure. “I'm no good as a father, I'm afraid. The most I can do-”

He breaks into a coughing fit, and I can see fresh blood welling up in his wound. I move forward to try and do something about it, but he stops me. “The most I can do,” he resumes, “is use up the bullets she saved for you.”

I shake my head and a few tears fall out from the corners of my eyes. “Not true,” I say. There are things I know I wanted to tell him but I can't remember what they were anymore.

“Sir-” Aran crashes beside me, emoting where I can't- “please don't tell me you walked out deliberately, sir.”

“Walking out was an idiotic thing to do, wasn't it?” His mouth is still in that weird half-smile. “And I've been a bigger fool than the lot of you combined.”

“Please,” I realise I'm begging, “I don't even remember what you did- someone go get help- why would you just give up like that?- Dad?”

But it's too late. He wheezes and his neck slumps back by a tiny fraction. I can barely hear it. Before that, the lower lid of his right eye twitches, but his face doesn't stir any more than that. Something fades from the air- I can't explain what, but it fizzles away and vanishes when he makes those final movements.

All of a sudden the brightness of the summer sky and the grass seem like taunts, heckling. I stop paying any attention to anything anyone's saying. I've had enough of words for the time being. It feels like something's plunging through my insides, like a little person diving into water, their path cleaving me in two.

“Pierre-” my mouth is going on without me, again- “lay me down. I'm recovering another memory and I think I'm going to pass out.” She's right- who's _she?_ I'm right. I can sense something, deep in the recesses of my head, break free and crawl up to join everything else. And I can sense that I'm imminently fainting.

“Oh, heavens- now?” There's a twinge of exasperation in his voice which I can kind of understand considering the circumstances, but then he seems to check himself. “Okay, Marianne. Just- just relax, and try to ease yourself into it, alright?”

His hand is on my back, and he's guiding me onto the floor. His touch is very soft, but the grass tickles and pokes at my face and it's less than comfortable. He puts me on my side, where I can feel the blood rushing around in my calves and forearms like waves crashing on a beach.

“We're going to bury Ezekiel,” he announces. I forget when he says this, but he says it. “We thought that would be best. And- after that the others are going to go on, but- I'll be staying here, Marianne. I won't leave you alone. Don't worry.” He takes a deep, sharp breath. “I'll go with you when you're awake. I won't let anyone hurt you.”

I want to nod or say thanks, but by the time that registers I'm already firm in the grasp of unconsciousness.

 

A man springs out of the void in front of my eyes, and he paces around in the abyss for a while before it coughs up some carpeted flooring for him to pace on. My younger self appears, sooner or later- because it wouldn't be a memory without her, right? I seem to have intruded on something weighty. His pacing is growing more and more erratic, and he makes some disconcerted murmuring noises but speaks no words. My father hasn't aged very well.

Little Marianne is perched on an ottoman. She's not immune to the heavy air of the room either, but to her own credit still seems to have a bit of life in her yet- she swings her legs back and forth impatiently, beating the daylights out of the poor ottoman with her heels. Her hair hasn't been curled, I notice. On such a tiny clue, can I try and find this thread's place within the bigger tapestry of my life? Probably not.

For a minute I pan my mind's eye around the scene whilst the conversation between the dream-figures is still in a lull. It's the living-room at home- Cassiopia has since upholstered it in white and gold and changed all the furniture, but she hasn't been imaginative enough to change its layout. Honestly, my last visit to the living-room of my house was so long ago that I'm surprised I don't pass out again to recover my memory of it. Nonetheless- here we are. My house pre-Cassiopia doesn't seem like the fount of warmth and love that I imagined it to be; it feels cold, sad, like the grieving witness of something dreadful, even before that carpeted flooring got pock-marked by the heels of a dozen expensive stilettos. The walls, papered in blue florals instead of ivory faux-paneling, are bare. I briefly wonder if this isn't just a furniture showroom. There's only one indication that a family live in this room, and that's in a small picture-frame on the end table near my younger self.

I try and get a closer look at the picture-frame, which is to say I will my subconscious to look closer, because I'm no more corporeal here than I have been in my other memories. It holds a portrait of a lady- it's not a picture of me, but in some other world it could be. Her blonde hair is more silvery than the dishwater-colour me and my father share, and her blue eyes are bluer than ours, like some far-off shore of a nicer country. There's a velvet shrug tossed around her shoulders which could be a night sky instead. It's probably reasonable to assume that she's my mother. She looks distinctly bored. Something tells me I know who she is, but I can't recall any sort of name or voice or even a smell, just the vague lines of a face in the dark.

The dark has been a common backdrop lately. I have the face and I even have some uttered words in the grip of my hand but almost on cue the younger Ezekiel breaks his circuit to step over to the end table and turns the frame face-down. Just like that, the inkling I have disintegrates.

Heels connect with ottoman once more and hit something within. The furnishing emits a feeble _'pomf'_. Younger Marianne glares. “I want Mama back,” she insists.

“Don't we all,” Ezekiel admits, bowing his head. His hair is cleaner- at least, the hair on top is. His face is patchy with stubble that doesn't quite grow evenly. “I'm sorry, sweet. I don't think I can bring her back. Not for now, anyway. We don't know what happened.”

“I _hate_ that other lady.” Younger Marianne's expression reminds me of Kirsten. “She's awful. She's bad, bad and mean. Ugly, too.”

“You mustn't say things like that,” Ezekiel says, with an obvious forced serenity. “She's just an old classmate from school. Must say, I haven't seen her in years- but she got back in contact after what happened. She's just trying to help. You shouldn't say nasty things about someone trying to help.” I don't think my younger self can see, but Ezekiel's brow is twitching and his nose is all screwed up like he's being forced to eat something disgusting. I don't think he believes himself, either.

“Tell her go away,” she says. “I don't want no help, I want Mama. I wan' go see Pierre as well.”

“That's... not the best idea, poppet. Pierre isn't feeling very well. He won't be in the mood to play. Besides, Cassiopia'll be here soon. She'll just keep an eye on you and make some lunch whilst I go and send off my report to the King.” This does not improve things in the slightest. “If you're good and get along with Cassiopia just for today, we can go and feed the ducks after dinner. I'll tell her _go away_ after that. Does that sound nice?”

This is slightly more effective in neutralising the brewing tantrum on younger Marianne's face, but she doesn't retract her little hands from the furious fists they're balled into. Ezekiel resumes his pacing. I will younger Marianne to prop the picture-frame back up. She wants her mother back, and I just want to know who she is. But willpower is useless here. A bell chimes, reverberating in the emptiness of the house. It's the door.

“There she is,” Ezekiel observes, shuffling out of the room. He offers an incredibly feeble precaution: “be good.”

The bell rings several more times in his absence; the chimes meld into each other turning the sweet music cacophonic. Younger Marianne's face warps into something sour, an experienced kind of sourness that knows what's coming next. I can see her steeling herself for the inevitable, straightening her back, the light falling out of her eyes.

Then there's an ear-splitting crash. The shock shakes her out of her seat and sweeps the picture-frame onto the floor, face-down. Something moans- it sounds like Ezekiel, but it's so high-pitched and drawn-out it sounds more like a novelty musical instrument than a human being. Comedy does not manage to be the antidote to fear here. Voices emerge amid the aftermath, snickering- one of them I can clearly recognise as Cassiopia's, but the other one is a stranger to me. Younger Marianne knows it no better than I do, apparently, as the voice's slow, unctuous purr sends an almost visible chill down her spine.

Out of the incomprehensible muttering one demand of Cassiopia's arises clearly: _“where have you put her?”_

It couldn't mean anyone else. It's bad news, bad news, bad news. I will my younger self to run away from all this, to escape before it's too late- and in a surprising moment of synergy, she does. She kicks the ottoman aside, makes a break for it out of the room. We finally hear Ezekiel's response, trickling through the walls- _“Marianne's in the living-room-”_ he giggles and hiccups as though he's cleared a bottle of wine- _“but listen, you can hear her running away!”_ He starts to titter like a schoolgirl.

Marianne's made it into the dining-room now and the giggling follows her. She almost trips over a draught-excluder. The door is cracking open behind her.

“There!” Cassiopia is the first to give pursuit, and she's animated like I've never seen her before- her snake-like eyes, lined with black, sweep over the room multiple times before she points, throwing her finger out like a javelin. “There, there's the brat! Get her, Master!”

Cassiopia imposes a sort of shadow on the room- this is before her white days, evidently, as she's in a dark number that clings to her like a wound. Her companion steps out from behind her, somehow looking much more subtle despite spelling a lot more danger.

“Let her run.” He's taller than her even with the beehive piled on her head, and the spark of excitement in his eyes is smaller but far more potent. “It's amusing.”

Younger Marianne screams. This feels more like a nightmare than a memory; it feels like I've been watching her run away forever, but she's only managed to make it from the dining-room into the kitchen.

The man clicks his fingers. A knife comes out of the rack and flies straight at Marianne, missing her head by about a millimeter.

Her resulting shriek bounces horribly back and forth between the walls.

“Aim more carefully, Master!” Cassiopia looks like she's watching some kind of sport.

“I know what I'm doing,” the man responds.

He clicks his fingers again. A cupboard door swings open and Marianne isn't lucky enough to miss it this time. You could probably hear the _smack_ from a mile away. The force of it leaves her reeling, dazed, her forehead branded red like some kind of treacherous watermark. Behind her, copper saucepans fall from hooks on the wall, an avalanche. They don't connect, but that distortion seems to rip through her like lightning just as it does me; tears sting at her bewildered eyes, and rather than collect at the corners they race down her features, dripping from a chin that's still round and chubby like a baby's. Her little fingers- bruised, though if that's from this or not I don't know- start to tremble and shake.

From the other room, Cassiopia claps.

“That should suffice,” the man says simply. “Bring her to me.”

“At once.” I've never seen her _beam_ like this. Cassiopia clears my younger self's fraught race to freedom of earlier in a few strides and emerges from the kitchen pulling a dress with a child inside.

“So this is his daughter,” the man sniffs. “I hear he wanted a son instead.”

Cassiopia laughs uproariously, as though someone just whispered something funnier into her ear. Almost on cue the butt of the joke stumbles into the room, dragging his knuckles on the floor behind him like an ape.

“Caaaass-eeee-oh-pee-aaah,” Ezekiel slurs, “I-iiii-I... l-loff- loff yooo...”

“Heavens, use a stronger spell, will you?” the man tuts. “Shut him up for a bit. He's not important for the moment.”

Cassiopia nods, utters something and darts a glare at Ezekiel which seems to totally incapacitate him; he takes a tumble and slumps against the door-frame, eyes lolling in their sockets. His jaw hangs open, but no sounds come out.

“Daddy!” Marianne yelps. “Daddy, help!” All she gets in response is a sliver of drool dropping from his lower lip.

“This, my child, will be the first of, doubtless, many lessons,” the man quips, “in which you'll learn that my brother is, in fact, rather useless.”

I know who this man is.

We both look at him properly for the first time in this whole altercation, and neither of us like what we see. The family resemblance is definitely there, albeit Gawain looks more like some kind of strange caricature of my father- laughter lines in place of frown lines, an emphasis on the bad teeth, eyes shot through with veins that waltz and twist. His mocking smile seems a million miles from the floor.

Younger Marianne doesn't say anything. She's posed and ready to start running away again, half-geared back towards the kitchen doorway, but she's trembling so violently I doubt she could do it. She flits her stare towards Ezekiel on occasion, but his presence doesn't bring any more comfort.

“W-would you like me to put her under control too, Master?” Cassiopia is fidgeting with a big diamond ring on her middle finger, twisting it about in anticipation. She looks at Gawain in a way I'd expect from someone like Finn, maybe, but not her.

“Oh, not yet.” The little smirk unfurls into a full-blown grin, pulling the rest of his face in like a whirlpool of skin. “But fear not. You'll have a role in this, Cassiopia, later, and it'll be a big one. One you'll enjoy.”

“Oh, good,” Cassiopia murmurs, blushing into the fur collar of her dress. I'm so disgusted at how she's acting in a situation like this that I almost don't notice Gawain take out a syringe from his coat. It's filled with a red liquid, sort of like blood but not quite, and the needle is awfully long.

The needle brings out a primal fear in Marianne who so far has only experienced a strange, unknowable fear, and this time she really screams, a scream that drills through ears. She moves to flee again but can't bring her actions to fruition, tripping over her own feet and scuffing her knees against the carpet.

“Master- what is that?” Cassiopia asks. “I mean- if we're going to kill the child- wouldn't it be quicker if... I have this spell, you see, I've been working on it, it makes the victim-”

“We're not killing her,” Gawain announces.

“But why not?” Cassiopia frowns. “I thought... well, you said that we were some time ago. If we leave her alive, then- you know, Lucille-”

“Lucille's under our control,” Gawain cuts her off, “and Calliope is an old woman now. Quite right, our little Marianne here is the only remaining Lovejoy female who could possibly pose a threat to us- which is why I have other plans for my niece.”

Wait. Calliope? Calliope Lovejoy? What does she have to do with this, now?  Who's Lucille?  What links us together?  I have a horrible feeling.

I don't know what the hell is going on, but I do know that it's way too much to process in the glinting light of the needle.

“Since then, I've invented something new,” Gawain says, tracing spindly fingers around the cylinder of the syringe. “I believe I may be the first man to successfully synthesise a human soul. And it's right in here.”

“Oh, Master-!” Cassiopia clutches her hand to her chest- “Master, you're a genius! A true prodigy! A synthetic soul!”

“Having access to all of Lucille's research papers helped, of course,” he says, “but yes. It'll inhabit her body and feed from her memories, take control of her behaviour. She'll require your help at first, Cassiopia, with your amnesia spells, but hopefully in good time she'll be strong enough to devour memories on her own.”

Marianne is scrambling on the floor to no avail. I pray for anything conceivable to come and help her- anyone at all I know, Felina, Pierre, anyone- but I feel like I already know how this memory's going to end.

“I suppose you're not wrong,” he shrugs, “it would be quicker to kill her, but those infernal stupid villagers would inevitably catch wind of a murdered child. We'll just murder her mentally first and they shan't care. The way I've formulated the personality of this synthetic soul- heh- well, the child should hardly be able to develop those soul abilities so prominent in her bloodline, for all her despair. You'll see to that, too.”

“Am I... in _charge_ of her?” Cassiopia neglects to notice that Marianne is nearly past her feet as her face twists in disdain.

“You are,” Gawain admits, “but, as my most faithful servant, I trust that such a task will be simple for you, no?” The disdain vanishes from her face. “The job will come with perks, I assure you. You could co-erce my brother into marrying you, make all his assets yours, and I should hardly endeavour to stop you. All you need to do is ensure Marianne will never be able to fight back.”

“Oh, that should be simple,” Cassiopia smiles, and delivers a sharp kick without even looking down. Marianne emits a strained whimper and falls to the floor.

“Excellent.” It's like they're discussing a business proposition. “Two enslaved Lovejoys should naturally be more useful to my cause than just one, don't you think?”

He readies the syringe in his hand. I can't look, but there's no option to look away or shut my eyes. I don't know if Marianne knows what's about to happen. For my own sake, for my own sanity, I can't even perceive her as me for this moment. She's a hurt child, a helpless victim, but I don't want to think that this is happening to me.

The needle sinks into her skin- my skin- like a knife into meat.

 


	20. Wanderers

Clouds were beginning to gather in the sky now. Faint chilly breezes curled around the outstretched branches of trees with interest before stopping and giving up, though none of summer's warmth returned to replace them. The weather wasn't about to get any better.

Emily-Rose decided that if there was one thing she hated, it was being outside for a very long period of time. Her invisibility cloak spell did wonders protecting her from her captors, helping her to slip away through a secret passage using another unwitting escapee as a decoy, but it did next to nothing to shield her from the elements. Had her kingdom always been so cold? Most summers she holidayed in Aelius' kingdom further south, where the sun shone and poured liquid gold through the cobbled streets. He'd always tried so hard to impress her.  Normally it was awkward at best, annoying at most.  She'd give her left leg for Prince Aelius now.  

Her stomach was rumbling, empty as the air she breathed. The last thing Emily-Rose had eaten was a mushroom, just a single mushroom- it was growing at the base of a tree, and she hadn't looked for any more. She'd heard about mushrooms that were poisonous, and mushrooms that made you hallucinate, and mushrooms that didn't actually taste that bad but had the unfortunate effect of enslaving you to the fair folk. Of course, none of these grew in the forest around Greenbough, but Emily-Rose had never bothered to research it. Nature hikes were for little children and Marion Brockett. Or was it Marianne? She didn't know why she cared. Pierre wasn't here to correct her.

That Pierre. He'd allegedly survived and was nowhere to be seen in the building or the breakfast hall before that fatal smashing of windows. In less dire circumstances Emily-Rose would have promised herself she'd clip that boy around the ear and give him a good talking-to for running off when her life was in danger. Hunger and fear played odd tricks on her livelihood, however, and all she felt was a lukewarm kind of longing for protection and safety again. They'd never seen eye-to-eye- well, it was impossible to while he still refused to get his hair cut- which she blamed on his hopeless romanticism and pithy affectations for the past, but she could have had worse guards to grow up with. She could have had a...

Well. Actually, she probably couldn't have had a worse guard to grow up with.

Why was she in this mess?

For all of the questions Emily-Rose tackled in her regular academic life, she truly felt as though this one question was the hardest she'd ever had to answer. This vague threat of soul-stealers and regicide had underpinned her whole life, it had shunted her off to this tiny village, and it had her preparing. Invisibility cloaks, teleportation spells, useless foppish guards, the whole array. And had any of it worked? She wasn't dead yet, but the ideal scenario had her escaping danger unscathed and evacuating to the cellar of Ava's house, which was in itself concealed beneath another cellar, sipping tea in the darkness waiting for the coast to clear again. But all of the locks were jammed and no spell let her in. Emily-Rose considered herself let down. In fact, it occurred to her that she should consider herself Emilia Rosalind, but she'd forgotten all of her other middle-names. She had truncated herself, crammed her whole identity in a tiny suitcase to be shuttled over here, and it was all for nothing.

She missed little Princess Emilia who'd gotten to live in a castle for five precious years, but that went without saying. More urgent at the moment was the way she missed Emily-Rose of last week whose biggest problem was the hem of Marion Brockett's skirt- had she no _shame_ , the slattern?- and at the very least had control over her environment. The current Emily-Rose was sick of seeing forests and grass and bushes everywhere she went with no break in the landscape. Had visuals been a problem for her at Drysdell's she could have complained and they would have spent all night re-painting the walls and shuffling in new furniture for her. When she found some form of shelter, she knew she would not miss greenery.

She remembered the colour of her uniform. She remembered Ava recommending the shade in their very first sweep through Oliver's department store- _it's very sensible, it won't sacrifice any dignity_ \- but like the damned things looming over her head now this memory extended gnarled new branches, new meanings. Green uniform, green trees, Greenbough. Camouflage. Of course. She felt splintered by the realisation, moronic and oxymoronic, a girl who owned everything, and yet- nothing was for her. It was all for 'protection'. Just what did they protect in protecting her, exactly?

There were figures now, however, ants in the corner of her vision. She didn't want to approach, as these ants were atop another one of those hills, and Emily-Rose didn't want to crest another hill any more than her poor shoes did. She drew closer, however, never discarding her cloak, and only encountered the beginning of what would be a very foul mood.

She would add Pierre Snowling to the list of privileges she thought she had that had betrayed her during this incident. The boy sat intently besides the form of a sleeping Marion Brockett, sword in his other hand. Her initial reaction was a nice, familiar disgust- _who would do that, who would fall asleep right out in the open in such an unflattering way?_ but an unfamiliar voice in the back of her head responded- _you would, idiot_ \- and pointed her attention to an ache in her spine that had been there since sunrise. Mausoleums were not comfortable places to sleep, as it had turned out.

Emily-Rose didn't even have the pleasure of being able to judge Marion Brockett to temper the awful, sinking feeling of victimhood which now drenched her very soul. How could he flout such a grave loyalty? Was there some word contained within the title of 'Royal Guard' which Pierre Snowling misunderstood? If there was, she knew which one it would be, because Marion Brockett was not easily mistaken for a princess. Oh, if he could plumb the depths of all the trouble he was going to be in, all the sanctions, all the shame, he would...

Actually, Emily-Rose wasn't sure what Pierre would do, or what would happen to him. The future was as cloudy as the sky above, and the solemn courts of the Capital were a further-away dream. She herself was not sure of what she would do, or what would happen to her.

She turned to look behind her, and saw another tree. She turned back and saw her guard, who still lived and breathed, and knew which one would lead her to safety. The former option didn't even have any legs, after all. She stayed, waiting for either one of the figures on the hill (both of them now equal in her esteem, though this was not a compliment by any means) to move, so that she could inevitably follow.

 

Somewhere else, a frustration that had been burgeoning in the mind of the Sergeant was beginning to break free of its tethers and emerge into the outside world.

While it was true that she had shot and probably killed a former Cabinet Minister- no mean feat- the fact was that she had missed that crucial moment where the life drained from his eyes completely, and he had been pulled away to die his death of disgrace somewhere totally out of her sight for the time being. May as well have taken him to a fucking opera. She had had to reload her gun- damned perishable traditional weaponry- but could not reload her patience. The stealth assassination had dropped off on a loose end, like writing out a perfect equation but running out of ink on the very last number, and these attack units were pissing her off with all the clanking.

Weird things, they were. What was it Master Gawain liked about those attack units so much? It wasn't as if they helped much. Most of the numbers they'd rounded up could be attributed to herself, or to Daryll- hell, even Arlene had a higher body count than those things, and she mostly just alchemised fancy clothing for herself in her spare time. They didn't need backup, but Gawain never did ditch the idea of backup. He was very, very loyal to that idea. More loyal than he was to Cassiopia, anyway.

They didn't even have eyes. The Sergeant hadn't felt fear for over a decade and wasn't about to. She still didn't like that about them.

Having them all crowded behind her was distracting, too, she found. The loose tail end from the half-baked assassination was fraying and splitting into even more loose ends, mostly related to what she was doing now. She'd have liked to take some more lives besides Ezekiel Brockett's, if she could, but nothing sentient was in sight. Her other directive was to search for that princess- _still_ untraceable despite three raids on three schools, and knowing her name helped nothing. This Emily-Rose was a slippery one with an irritating lack of outstanding characteristics. Then- where was Daryll? She hadn't seen him since yesterday. Up to something?- no, Daryll was never up to anything, Daryll knew she'd find out and hunt him down- or rather he _thought_ , as the Sergeant now confronted the reality that there was nothing she could really do about his absence other than report it, and magic would be _very_ helpful right now-

A lone arm somewhere back in the horde of attack units lifted gently in the breeze and bumped against another one with a feeble _bonk_.

The Sergeant had had enough.

She riveted around on the ball of her foot and fired several rounds into her entourage. The first few bullets were the loudest, tearing through barrel-like metal chests, and the next few were silenced by the sound of units falling to the ground, stumbling over one another, eyeless heads rolling and reeling in circles. The machines were piling on top of one another like snow in a drift in moments, leaving the few rows at the back standing dumbly in what may have been shock, but the Sergeant knew wasn't. They were just that: dumb.

Lord, did she have a headache.

She strode off without them. She'd find something: a group of teenagers with a Minister's corpse, some stragglers from the earlier raid, the princess with the sparkly gold soul. One of those things. Something. Perhaps there'd be a pharmacy somewhere around she could break into so she could treat the acerbic sting currently making its way across her forehead. But no, there was no pharmacy in Greenbough Village. She knew that quite well. She'd have to trudge another circuit of this lifeless little place alone, no clear directions, searching for things she wasn't even sure would be there, with the makings of a migraine blurring her vision. Her glasses never helped her eyesight. She wondered why that was.

And then she didn't, and started on her way.

The precise shape of Greenbough Village and its various ramshackle buildings were all too familiar to the Sergeant. It just so happened that the civilised parts were the least of her worries- the real problem with hunting people down in this area was the nothingness that expanded beyond it, grass and trees and hills and some more trees until you found another town. It was enough to drive an assassin mad. The Sergeant wondered if those urban legends about the fields that could swallow people whole and cough their bones up somewhere else were true, and hoped not. Master Gawain didn't care for bones, even if she herself found them quite interesting.

The gate to the cemetery was ajar, and it creaked, but it always did that. It meant nothing. The Sergeant strolled- was her directive really to _stroll?_ \- paced towards the village green.

And was it the wind playing tricks on her, or did she really hear human voices?

“Look, I've lived out on the streets before, so I know, okay? We really shouldn't hide right out in plain sight. It's way more dangerous.” A male voice, gruff but hemmed in by audible pubescence.

“But there's nobody around! All the doors are locked!” A very wheedly female voice. God, it grated on her ears just like Arlene's.

“Then we just break in somewhere. Didn't you say you can move things around with your magic? Do that to a lock. Old-fashioned buildings, old-fashioned locks. Boom.”

“But- but that's _illegal!_ ” Definitely wasn't Arlene.

Two lanky shadows were traipsing around the perimeter of a fountain, clearly caught up in some kind of bickering. The Sergeant stifled a sigh, a deep sigh of simultaneous second-hand embarrassment and indifference. She could probably get them both in the head at long range; they were both around the same height. It was something to do at last, but still didn't feel like much fun. Killing was fun when it was Ezekiel Brockett, but these two were just nuisances who kept shifting whenever the Sergeant locked on. Wasn't Master Gawain approaching the grand finale of his plan soon? When would her job feel fulfilling again? Wasn't it meant to be fulfilling now?

She couldn't stifle her next sigh, and pointed the barrel at the male shadow- he was less sprightly than his female companion. Maybe it would be entertaining to hear her scream. Maybe it'd just make her headache worse. Ugh.

Her fingers began to brush the trigger, and she hoped for at least a brief flash of satisfaction.

She received a series of brief flashes of blinding light to the face, and dropped her gun.

Then, from behind her, she felt a less ambiguous sensation of being thwacked with a hammer.

Oh son of a bitch her head hurt now.

Two other voices rang out at once, but didn't mesh together at all- the Sergeant didn't exactly hear what they said, but both were overly triumphant. They were probably triumphant because they had knocked her clean out by surprise. Bastards. The only way she could hold onto consciousness was to think of how much she hated Greenbough Village, and everybody in it.

 

Alec Valmont was feeling his first positive emotion in ages.

That woman was the one who raided Bagnold's, no doubt about it- same frazzled white hair and black overcoat, same weird glasses. She was spread clumsily across the ground now, fumbling in the grass for something. Over her stood a friend.

“It looks like we both had the same idea.”

Imogen somehow managed to look totally different from the last time Alec saw them, despite wearing the exact same baggy clothes and newsboy hat pulled down low over round features that they'd been wearing a couple of weeks ago. He finally figured it out: it was the grin competing for width with the visor of their hat, and an impish ignition of light in their muddy-brown eyes.

“Your face is priceless, Alec.” In their hand they gave a wooden mallet an insouciant twirl. “I'll tell you all about the weirdo who broke me out of the cellar later. For now, well, there's someone important behind you.”

And perhaps Imogen could've elaborated, but Alec gave them no time, registering the implication in a split-second and whipping around on his feet. Before even looking for that person he saw him, handsome as ever, bundled up in a strange grey coat and talking to a stranger. But Alec did not care to fraternise with strangers any longer. He did not care to learn any more names, or to share his. For now there was only one name he wanted to scream, and he did, barrelling towards its owner at top speed.

He let a name he could only ever mutter or whisper fill the air in this moment. There was a whole forest separating him from Merrowlake, and only a couple of yards separating him from Greg now. He would scream what he wanted. He would love who he wanted.

Greg and Alec collided, but not by accident; entirely on purpose.

 


	21. From Underneath

****A cold and distinctly un-summery bristle creeps along my arms and is the main thing to help me out of unconsciousness. Everything is heavy in my chest.

“Marion's a creation of Gawain designed to turn me into an advantage rather than a threat,” I tell Pierre, before he can open his mouth to ask. “But damn it, I could have figured that out myself.” I cough a few times, and straighten my skirt out.

“Oh, Marianne.” He gazes at me with that soft sympathy of his, putting his hand to his mouth. “Oh, Marianne, that's awful.”

My throat is tightening. No, no, no, don't cry. I've done enough crying. “I could've done without having to see the whole thing again-” I pinch the skin between my left thumb and forefinger tightly- “if I just had a clue, or something, if I'd just been told, then...”

He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Marianne, I'm so sorry.”

“It's not your fault. You shouldn't apologise.”

“If I could make light of the situation,” he murmurs, “and I know it's not really my place, but- Marion is a creation, did you say? That means she's unnatural, not even of this earth. She's completely separate from you. None of this is your fault, either.”

“I suppose not.” Maybe I am being pessimistic, and maybe this situation can be viewed in a positive light, but all I can imagine is little me, knives flying past her head, doors slamming into her face, black gloves dragging her by the scruff of her neck. Just how much have I been kicked around? Are there more memories I'm going to regain where I just watch myself suffer?

And what of Professor Lovejoy?

“Pierre, there was something else.” I turn to look at him properly and my face feels like stone. “I mean, it wasn't the point of it, but there was something Gawain said in that memory that's bugging me.”

“You've met Gawain?” He's aghast.

“There was this offhand remark he made,” I mutter, “about Lovejoys.”

“Lovejoys,” he repeats, mystified. “Like Professor Lovejoy?” He seems to roll the surname around his mouth in intrigue, like he's never heard of it and is trying to get a feeling for it.

“He said- oh, what was it?” I try to remember, clicking my fingers a couple of times. It's difficult to remember exactly, since all I'm mining up is knives and my father howl-laughing and drooling- “something about the Lovejoy family posing a threat to him. But Calliope- that is, our Professor Lovejoy- she was too old to, and there was the other one, and then... me. Hence Marion. Neutralising that last threat they had.”

“You're related to Professor Lovejoy?” He repeats a thought that's been buzzing quietly in the corner of my head ever since the words were uttered.

“That must be what it means, right? But I don't know how.”

Specifics be damned, it makes sense, almost too much. I've accidentally called her 'Mum' far too many times for me to be able to disbelieve it. But why now? Is Marion taunting me, only setting loose memories that she knows will confuse me and distract me from whatever it is I'm meant to be doing?

“And he said she was old?” Pierre is less surprised than I thought he'd be. “Heavens. Is that why he's so intent on recruiting people like Theodore and Arlene? Terribly high age standards?”

“Maybe,” I say, but I'm starting to zone out again. “Professor Lovejoy isn't very old at all, is she?” I remember how I used to look much more haggard than she did, with my dry hair and patchy skin. I didn't have any lines yet- but neither did she.

Right when I start thinking about powder and pin-curls and perfume, Kirsten stomps up the hill as though summoned. Finn and Kamil trail reverently behind her. “We've looked _everywhere_ ,” she moans, “and there are no roses to follow at all.”

“I mean, there were _some_ roses,” Kamil adds helpfully, “but they were in someone's garden.”

“Rife wi' greenfly,” Finn chimes in. “Didn't go nowhere neither.”

“Are you totally sure that's what Felina said?” The ghost of a red, puffed-out face is emerging beneath her makeup. “Follow the roses? You listened to her, didn't you?”

“Of course I did.” It's funny how she thinks Felina couldn't possibly be wrong.

“We've all lived in this village our entire lives, so I think we would have noticed by now were there a convenient path of roses leading somewhere,” Pierre refutes. “She must mean something else by it.”

“Is now really a good time for metaphors?” Kamil wonders aloud. Kirsten whips around and _shush_ es him with a force that could blow out a house fire.

“But what does it mean?” Finn asks.

We pause.

Roses. What else do roses mean? They're red... but they can be other colours too, so it's not a colour thing. What did _A Basic Appreciation of Fine Arts_ say in the glossary about roses again- love? Passion? How are we supposed to follow abstract concepts? That probably isn't what she meant.

“I've got nothing,” says Kamil. Kirsten concurs with a worried noise.

“Nothing else comes to mind,” Pierre frowns.

“Well, bollocks,” Finn concludes.

Kirsten groans a very fraught and gravelly groan that hints at an oncoming tantrum. Looking away is the best decision; I let Finn and Kamil irritate her instead. It feels almost like I'm being watched from somewhere, though I don't know who by. Like our slope of hill is some grassy mezzanine. This show is unconvincing, and I've just ran out of ideas.

The clingy, black feeling in the pit of my stomach does not fade. I feel weak and more than a little unsafe. Forgetting about Professor Lovejoy had been almost beneficial; now that she's a part of the mystery she's back in my head again and I can't help but worry futile, powerless worries. Where did she go? Is she okay? It's so hard to view the events leading up to her departure without the filter of Marion clouding it up. Threat, threat, threat, adventure, adventure, Juniper- oh, shit, Juniper...

I think I may have fucked this entire thing up. My teacher is missing, Juniper is missing, my dad's dead, and there aren't even any roses to follow.

Kirsten is bickering with Finn now but I don't really care enough to pay attention to exactly what they're bickering about. It feels like there's a pair of eyes and they're really boring into me now. I can't bear it. Everything seems absolutely awful but I can't cry, just in case I really am being watched by something or someone and they laugh at how weak and stupid Marianne Brockett is. It's getting harder and harder to keep everything down, though, and I just wish I could set all this sadness free in some form or another-

The heavens open. Rain crashes down on us like pots and pans.

“Rain!” Finn shouts. “Where the 'ell did that blow in from?”

“ _My hair!”_ Kirsten shrieks, plunging a flailing arm into a gap and whipping out an umbrella. “Oh my word, my bloody _hair_ it's going to get _ruined_ -” it's too late for that, though- “I had no idea it was going to rain this hard- what on earth-”

“It wasn't going to,” Kamil frowns.

The umbrella springs up and out and Kirsten cowers beneath it, though her prized hair has unfurled from its tight coils and now weeps against her back in mere waves. On cue the rain starts pummeling against that instead. It starts to seep through the weave of Juniper's cardigan, too. I think I'm too numb to register it until a shiver rips through my muscles and sends me smack-bang into alertness.

Pierre turns to look at me- his hair is ruined too and it droops over his face, where the raindrops race down it like a river. He tries to say what might be my name, but he only manages to mouth the first syllable of it with no sound coming out.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Even though I'm probably staring at him too.

“To borrow one of your own phrases,” he murmurs, too quietly for anyone else to pick up on, “the air around you changed just then.”

“Oh.” Some thunder stirs and bristles in the clouds above and I look down, too dumbfounded to ask anything further. If only Professor Lovejoy could be here, to explain everything- if only I was in her classroom, inhaling the dust and the delicate perfume of the roses. The roses.

The ground is soaked now, just like us, and the grass is getting swallowed up by mud. A little worm wriggles out of the swelling earth.

I hang onto a bit of willpower, even though willpower hasn't always worked and it hasn't always passed me my practical exams, and I wish for something. I try to improvise. I look at the worm, focus on it, think about it. Little worm, no eyes, no arms, no legs, going wherever it thinks is best. Worms are good for soil, I know. With just a desire and a memory of someone important, I try and bring roses forth from the churned-up earth beneath us.

My hands grow hot all of a sudden, like I'm resting them on an oven shelf and not the ground. My head is pulsing. What have I done? Everything is undulating. Please, not another memory. The rain is hitting me like bricks. Bricks through windows. I've lost sight of the worm.

But the weird feeling I had in my stomach has gone, and I shake off the headache feeling strangely cleansed. The heat mellows out into an easygoing warmth. Warmth like the kindness of mothers, like nurture and care.

A single pale pink rose has blossomed in front of me.

 _Nice,_ I think in that moment, to nobody in particular, _can you do that again?_

Another one pokes out of the ground a few feet away, distending from bud to flower in seconds, the same kind of blush shade. Three more follow around it, and then another three, and another, and another. It's the way they unfold, pink petals delicate as skin out of straggly green vines, that mesmerises me. Hell, they remind me of Juniper. Professor Lovejoy, too. They're just so pretty.

The roses keep growing until the hillside is cut in two, divided by a long queue of flowers. By then the rain has stopped, but it probably stopped long ago without me noticing. The air is thick now, like in a dream, thick with that semi-sweet kind of perfume I've come to recognise so well. I feel cleansed of something but I'm not sure what. The warmth of mothers stays with me, thrumming through my blood.

Kirsten and Finn have stopped bickering.

“What the hell was that?” Finn asks.

“Yeah, seriously,” says Kirsten.

Kamil gawps, and Pierre says nothing.

“Well, you wanted roses,” I say. “And there are some right here. They even look like a path you can follow.” A very long path, at that- they go way beyond the horizon.

“Well, yeah, I can see that,” Kirsten says. Her heavy-lidded eyes are now wide to the point I can actually see the whites of them. “But how...”

“Hey, they could vanish as soon as they appeared!” Kamil chimes in all of a sudden. “That happens, sometimes.”

“That's true,” I reply. “Often things like that don't stick around very long.” I'm telling a massive lie here. They're real roses. They're going to stick around for as long as there's heavenly rain and worms to look after them. I don't want Kirsten to be able to ask any questions, though, because she's probably going to ask one I can't answer, like _did you do that, Marianne?_

“Carn' argue wif that,” says Finn. “I'm going.” He starts to traipse alongside the rose path, whistling a weird, jaunty tune I don't recognise.

I follow, because I don't know what else to do.

The rose path takes us to the bottom of the hill, and then across a field. Finn eventually gets bored of whistling and begins full-out belting a weirder tune about assembling a machine. Traipsing turns to clumping. For a moment I wonder what it would be like to be Finn, and have his confidence. He's about thirteen, right? When I was thirteen- that would've been the year Marion cut off my hair, and the year I met- no, his name wasn't Matt, Nick or Jonathan at all, it was Lewis Faulkner, and he would've been sixteen at the time.

I don't feel sixteen. I think Lewis Faulkner was an idiot to want to make a trade like that- virginity, for a week's lunch money. I wouldn't trade the safety of naivete, blissful stupidity, for all of the lunch money in the world. If either was in my grasp, anyway. Finn occasionally stops amid his clumping to dance a little jig. He really likes that song. Where does he think he's following this rose path to? Just how does he think he'll cope with this threat he's about to go and confront? His confidence is as indestructible as his invention.

Pierre's shoes are very quiet behind me, but through some new form of intuition I instantly pick up on his presence. The grass is wet and squelches a bit when we take steps. I turn and wait for him to catch up.

“Marianne,” he says. He smiles, but his visible eyebrow is quirked a bit in confusion.

“Pierre,” I answer. His name sounds a lot weirder coming out of my mouth than mine does his.

“Very nice roses, aren't they?” he murmurs. “They remind me of Professor Lovejoy, just a little.”

“They remind me of Professor Lovejoy an awful lot,” I say.

“Mm.” He nods, and his smile widens by a tiny amount. “I remember her classroom.” He looks more like a girl than ever, with his wet hair draped all down his back like that. It occurs to me that I don't ever want to see him get hurt, but what can I do about it?  “Do you feel better, Marianne?” he asks. I wait for him to specify, but he doesn't.

“Yeah,” I decide after a minute, “a bit, yeah.”

 

The rose path goes on quite a way. Kirsten starts to complain about the walk. It doesn't take us back into Greenbough Village at all; in fact, it goes the opposite way, leading us out of Greenbough Village. I think it might take us somewhere familiar, like the end of the river where I used to wash sometimes, but it only flirts with the idea of doing that before dragging us in some other direction where the rain hasn't touched.

When the rose path starts to show any sign of thinning out whatsoever we're in some dead-end part of the forest where the ground is too preoccupied to grow grass but the trees are too preoccupied to still be alive. The roses get harder and harder to spot; various brambles and fallen branches brawl for dominance at our feet.

“I think 'ey've stopped!” Finn yells, from way ahead of us. “'Ckin 'ell, check out this bloody great hole!”

“Who taught him to swear like that?” Kirsten tuts, from way behind us. “Honestly.” A particularly long string of thorns is giving her trouble, and there's already a ladder in her tights to account for the immensely pained expression on her face. Kamil rips the thing out of the way for her, and she catches up.

It takes longer than we'd have hoped for us to close the distance between us and Finn; his messy blonde head is out of sight. Hell knows how he got through here. At one point half an upended tree blocks the path and we have to enlist the help of Pierre's sword to clear through it. Were it that we could all be midgety thirteen-year-olds with a nigh-suicidal sense of overconfidence.

When we finally get to where Finn is the final rose cowers in a heap of kicked-up mud, and it overlooks the dip into an even muddier ditch which I know I wouldn't particularly like to fall down. At the heart of the trough is, exactly as advertised, a bloody great hole lined with large stones.

“Is that it?” Pierre asks. “Is that where we're meant to go?”

“No more roses,” says Finn.

“It's a bit dark,” says Kamil.

“And deep,” I add. You can't see the bottom, and just from looking at it I can sense that you'd never be able to.

We collectively hesitate.

“Marianne, go ask Felina again,” says Kirsten, her voice trembling a little. “I don't want to jump down that _thing_ unless I'm absolutely sure it's the right thing to do.”

“You know it's only her that can ask me things, right?” I say, but I close my eyes and try and concentrate anyway.

Then some twigs snap and a gunshot rips through the air. Pierre pulls me out of the way before I get hurt by anything, but it startles the hell out of me. I know what this means.

I expect more gunshots to compensate for the one that missed, but all that happens is a kind of clicking noise.

“Damn you all,” a woman's voice growls, “you're all a flaming waste of ammunition.”

It's the woman from the other night. The one who shot my father. Pierre takes his sword out from its holster again.

“How did you find us?” Kamil sounds like he's trying to be threatening, but his voice comes out as kind of a strangulated yelp.

“What the hell kind of question is that?” The woman emerges from the twice-chopped corpse of the tree, pacing towards us on black heeled boots like a spider. “You think I didn't notice you idiots casting that rain spell and then summoning a load of roses out of the ground? For all your magical educations you'd think they'd teach you some damn sense.”

She kind of sways as she walks- her head lilts slightly to the left, and her frazzled silver hair crackles around her head like lightning. We can't move anywhere. Moving backwards means falling down a very steep ditch.

“Well, I'd love to know what you think you can do to us,” Kirsten sneers all of a sudden, “with nothing in your gun and nobody to help you. Where're your huge metal beast... things, and your accomplice, hmm?”

Kirsten's right. She is actually right; this woman doesn't pose a threat. So why do I have chills?

The woman sneers right back, but she doesn't say anything. Something hits me, then, when I'm paying attention to her face and not what she's saying: this woman is familiar, and not just in the sense that we've already seen her before.

“I've seen you try to defend yourself in the raid, girl, and I don't rate your chances very highly.” Her eyes are red behind her glasses- as in literally red, not just bloodshot. Can a human being naturally have eyes like that? “But you're not even the weakest in this group, are you?”

“I'm not fuckin' weak!” Finn shouts before the woman can even finish. “I'll smash yer fuckin' 'ead in!”

“Oh, please,” the woman sighs. “You know I wasn't talking to you.”

He simmers down.

The woman reaches inside of her overcoat and pulls out something from it- it's difficult to see in the black palm of her gloved hand, but it's a tiny little rectangle of black. And then she vanishes.

Before we can question or prepare or relax or anything something jolts between me and Pierre and seizes me by the back of my neck. Leather-gloved hands.

“Master Gawain doesn't even need many more souls,” the lady crows. “But I'm deprived of something to kill.” The surroundings start to blur. It's a teleportation spell.

I hear everyone screaming, but I can't bring myself to. It's not that I'm scared, it's just that some other emotion has come over me at the last minute- the feeling of deja-vu. Perhaps it could be that having a hand gripping tightly at my throat and a woman scream-laughing brings to mind memories of Cassiopia, but I know that's not quite the case.

I have a better view than ever of the woman's face now, and I realise now that I know it. I don't recognise it but I know it- vulpine, almost, slim eyes that could have been beautiful, framed by pale hair. The only discrepancy is the glasses and the bloody shade of her irises, but otherwise this woman belongs in a watercolour portrait, sitting in a pretty frame in a nice living-room.

“I'm going to fling you into the darkest, filthiest holding cell we have,” she whispers to me, husky voice full of strange glee. “Your useless little body will rot like an apple.”

Why can I only stare at her, open-mouthed, while death is gobbling up my arms and legs in the form of a teleportation spell? Why am I thinking of roses again? Should I just let this word sitting on my tongue roll out and be free?

The sky melts into darkness. We're going. My limbs feel like a broken doll's. I can't see Pierre or anyone else anymore. The word escapes.

“Mother?”

 


	22. Echoing

Pain jumps from the back of my neck to my left thigh when I'm flung into the cell as promised. The floor is cold and strangely rocky- I can feel a long graze burn its way up my thigh. My mother snaps the door shut and the lock _clunks_ with extreme prejudice. I don't think she heard that tiny word before we teleported. That, or she just didn't care.

And now I'm well and truly alone.

What was that name, again? Who was the other Lovejoy? Lucille, I think Gawain said, an old-fashioned ladies' name. Much like Marianne, really. Some Drysdell's people would refer to their parents by their first names, and it had always felt weird to hear them do it in that blessed time I didn't know about mine; I desperately longed for the protection of a parental figure myself, and couldn't fathom how they could reject that name, that epithet of 'Mum' or 'Dad' they'd earned from birth, just to use the same name everyone else used for them.

Now I understand. I understand completely. It's too hard to call her 'Mum' when she's been stalking around trying to kill us and in the process successfully killing her own husband and my own father. That pet-name waved goodbye when the prison door slammed.

Now that that issue is out of the way, I try and confront the more obvious one. There's a tiny part of me telling me that this is it, there's no getting out of here, but I try not to listen to her. This place makes the little overnight cells in the police station near Greenbough look like luxury boudoirs. At least those cells had beds. And at least one proper source of light. It's also difficult to scope my precise level of solitude here: the place is not perfectly silent. There's stirrings somewhere, ever so quiet, but for all I know it's just the blood rushing around in my ears.

It's really not sufficient enough to see anything by, but there's a slightly less dark area of darkness in the distance. I think it might be a window; it casts several other promising rectangles of maybe-light onto the ground.

It's just the door. There's nothing on me I can pick the lock with, and it doesn't yield to rattling. Another terrible sign, really. I am in a scrape. I've gotten myself out of scrapes before- or rather, I've gotten Marion out of scrapes- so I can at least have a stab at getting myself out of this one. Even if it does seem to be much deeper than a scrape. It's kind of more like a stab wound.

Think. I have to think. Are there guards on the other side? I can't see through the window. Maybe I can outwit them, though my wit isn't feeling too sharp after that tumble.

Just for good measure I slam against the door with all the might left in my body, pounding it with my fist, shouting a choice selection of the worst curse words I can muster. I try out some special personalised curses: insulting hypothetical mothers, fathers, genital regions, life choices, future job prospects. The aim is to get a reaction.

I get a shitload of nothing.

There's nobody on the other side of the door.

It's difficult to climb down from that energy and I let out an accidental hiccup-shriek-sob. I don't want to rot to death in here. It's fucking embarrassing, being a weakling who can't even magic her way out of a locked room. That's one of the first things they teach you at Drysdell's. I'm all the use of a damp paper bag. My head hurts too much to want to think of any other answers.

My blood has simmered down but the air is not yet silent. That's the worrying part. I try and cool the rest of me down too, before my heart batters my ribcage into tiny shards, and listen.

It's a tiny little sound I have to strain to hear, no breeze to carry it to me. I crawl closer to where I think it might be coming from, though there's no sense of direction in this chilly void. It gets louder but not by much. It's a noise that rustles against my inner ear like a crumpled paper bag in the wind. It could almost be a voice, but I can't make out what it says.

“Hello?” I call out. The echo all but drowns that tiny sound. “Is anyone here?”

Another sound, still small but a lot more prominent than before, follows my call: the sound of a match striking. A miniscule flicker of flame goes up in the corner of my vision, positively miniature but bright as the sun in the darkness, and goes to sit at the peak of a candle.

I'm so excited by the prospect of not being alone that I run towards it, stumbling over peaks of rock. Why am I acting like a moth? It occurs to me a bit too late that maybe this person might not be on my side, but I collapse before the light anyway. The first sense that attunes to the situation is not my hearing, though. It's my sense of smell.

It's like I can't escape roses at all, not even here where they couldn't possibly grow.

“Dear Marianne,” the voice crackles wryly, “who was it who taught you all those filthy words? It certainly wasn't me.”

My hand has fallen on something soft- the hem of a skirt. I follow it upwards, through more layers of skirt, a bustle, a corset, a thick shawl around slacking shoulders. An ensemble which, try as it may in the dark, is not a mystery to me.

“Professor Lovejoy,” I say, “what are you doing here?” I can't think of any better questions to ask.

“Don't cry, sweetheart,” she responds.

I'm about to say something but then I realise there's practically a waterfall coming out of my eyes; fat tears, child's tears. They're starting to drip onto her skirt. “But what are you _doing_ here?” I ask, through a tightening throat. My nose is beginning to run.

She tuts kind of half-heartedly and pulls her old briefcase out from somewhere, the one covered in floral tapestry weave. She opens it and offers me a handkerchief, which I have no choice but to accept at this point. I mop up my wet face with it and blow my nose; it feels flimsy in my hands, like the peeling skin of a silver birch tree.

I look up and meet Professor Lovejoy's eyes, and then have to bury my face in the handkerchief again just to process it.

Not even her makeup can breathe any sense of dimension or normalcy into her features now; the rouge is a poor substitute for a sign of life. The eyes she looks at me with are flat and dull, whites not even really white, staying at half-mast as though permanently just glancing at everything and not even looking properly.

“Professor,” I just manage to croak, “you look really bad. No offence.”

She kind of laughs.

“How did this happen?” I ask. The handkerchief's necessary again. “How did you end up down here and- like that?” Like a dead rose, festering in the dark with no sunlight to pick it back up again, all thorns and no softness- is what I mean to say, but don't.

“Well, how did you, my dear? I expected to be alone in here. And is that Juniper Carroll's cardigan?”

I'm speechless for a second. Why the hell are we talking about cardigans at a time like this? “Yes, it is,” I say.

“She was a good seamstress.”

“Yes, she was.”

I blow my nose one last time. My eyes are like wefts of yarn stitched into my skull. Now that I look at Professor Lovejoy again I can't look away, I can only stare, disconcerted. It must really be her, but something inside is so different. Something I can't place and can't articulate no matter how much I want to be able to.

I decide eventually to answer her question, as much as she's avoiding answering mine. “Professor- I got caught, in the end. I don't think my soul is any use to these guys. They just want to kill me.”

She's silent.

“Professor Lovejoy, that woman, the one who did the raid- she's my mother, isn't she?”

She nods.

There's a long, pregnant pause.

“And I learned to swear from listening to the older kids. But I invented a few of those myself.”

“You know I'm not really angry at you for swearing,” she says, slowly.

“Then what are you angry at me for?”

“Nothing at all.” She looks at me. “Why would I be angry at you, sweetheart?”

“Well, I don't know-” I shift around where I'm sitting- “it was just the way you phrased that, and...”

“Swear as much as you like,” she says.

“Okay,” I reply, but I'm really not in the mood to.

“Your mother used to swear just as much,” she says, “and was a nightmare for her poor teachers.”

Word association- teachers- “Professor-” I have to force this question out of my mouth- “you're not my teacher, are you? I mean, you are, but you're something else, isn't that right? I'm not just what I am, I'm a Lovejoy, too. Same as you.”

“Possibly the last one in a few generations to have a chance at happiness,” she says, “a Lovejoy, yes, you are.”

“But what are you?”

“I'm made of dust and ash, Marianne.”

In the low light her pupils run so horribly deep, and it feels like looking into them could suck me into an abyss emptier than here and twice as uncomfortable. Our conversation might be headed to such a place. Tremors are starting to skitter all through my body and through my limbs like little spiders.

Professor Lovejoy stares, putting her fingertips to opposite sides of her forehead. All of the movement falls out of her skin; one long, uniform crack emerges starting from her hairline looping round to her temples.

Her face falls off like a mask.

What's beneath is the antithesis of what she's just taken off, shrivelled and wrinkled and deflated like some sort of rotting vegetable. A few traces of makeup remain, but there's no more illusion, it's just that: makeup, paint on her face, black lines around her eyes and pink stuff on her thin lips. The only thing staying the same is the lack of light and life, but is that really an accomplishment? The candlelight pushes the furrows in her face further down, trenches of skin. Her hair is messier, but maybe it was like that when I got here, fried and straw-like just like Lucille's.

“Professor,” I say, “you're... old.” Somewhere I feel thankful that this is the word- _old_. After all, aren't there worse things to be than just _old?_

The younger face is still just sitting on the ground like a husk. Couldn't there be worse things than _old_ hiding behind a face?

“You see, my dear,” she answers, “one difference between you and I is that the rumours that spiteful people spread about you are not true.”

“I don't follow.” I'm not sure I want to. This particular garden path is lined with thorns every step of the way.

“You were unpopular at Drysdell's. I was unpopular, too, among the teachers.” Maybe there's humour in what she's saying but I can't find it. “They had their reasons- jealousy, mostly, that Master Drysdell's petty little infatuation should merit me special treatment. They thought my beauty and youth all a sham, and that I was just some old crone desperately hiding the years. Of course, I never corrected them.”

“I really don't understand, Professor.”

“I don't understand, either,” she says, “how you keep calling me Professor when you've already discovered we're related, my dear.” My stomach drops. I was hoping she wouldn't bring this up. If not Professor, then what?

“It's just natural by now, and-” my neck feels like there's a belt closing around it- “well, I just don't know what you are. In relation to me. You keep avoiding my questions.”

“My sweet child, you already know. You understand perfectly, I think.” Her tone softens. “Perhaps you're afraid of the answer? Just this week you've been through an awful lot. I know. You're frightened that what you think may be wrong, and that I will give you some awful revelation that will leave you reeling.”

“Yes,” I say. “You know all about that, right? You've got your time-travelling watch.”

“It's nothing so complex, my sweet,” she says. “Maternal intuition. Perhaps, when you are older and your blood courses through new veins, you will be able to harness that power yourself. It's a sharp kind of knowing, uncannily so.”

“Whose mother are you, Professor?”

“Lucille's.”

“Oh.” The answer is finally coaxed out of her. Some kind of weight falls from my heart, and I'm able to breathe just a little bit better.

“But we're not on speaking terms at the minute,” Professor Lovejoy says. “By some contrivance she manages to become a killing machine of Gawain's every time.”

Like mother, like daughter. I try and think of portrait-Lucille pointing a gun at some children; black-clad killer-Lucille teaching me nursery rhymes and setting curls in that little blonde head.

“She had the gall to throw me in a cell that didn't even have a bed. You're very much the favourite child, Marianne, know that at least.”

I try to switch the two Lucilles around to their proper places. Neither fit. Perhaps Lucille is a memory I'll recover one day, but it won't be today. All I can think of is guns, guns, black, red eyes, dead dad. Murder attempt on daughter. Murder attempt on...

“You're my mother's mother.” Mother's mother, like mother-squared. “You were my grandmother all along, Professor Lovejoy.” It's cathartic to say.

“Quite.” There's a tiny little smile in her lifeless eyes yet. “In a better life, perhaps, I should just be knitting you warm things and baking cakes for you, to tell you all my stories without a shred of ambiguity. Regrettably, however, I've never seen a life like that, even among the hundreds of timelines I've traversed and crashed.” The trace of smile has faded. “The mind wonders if perhaps you've been dealt a particularly rubbish hand in the family department, Marianne.”

No shit.

“Professor, the timeline thing,” I say, “even if you can't see what's gone on this week, you can still travel through time, right? With that watch. I tried it myself. It worked, and everything.”

“Yes.”

“But- that's illegal.” Ironically, it might have been one of Professor Lovejoy's classes where we learned that.

“Time travellers are not the easiest fugitives to catch,” she says, “and I should expect law enforcement have their hands busy. Mass kidnappings and soul-stealings are rather more illegal.”

“So you're trying to stop Gawain.” I wish I had something more to offer in this conversation, but I'm talking to something a lot bigger than myself- something timeless, something that's seen the world a million times over. I'm just a speck in comparison. A microcosm.

“Trying.” Her whole figure has kind of hardened into a statue now. “Hence the need to start over so many times.”

“How many times?”

“More than I can count.”

The air is hollow. Roses are only an afterthought, a helpless sigh and a shrug.

“Professor- what have you seen?”

“Everything.” She pauses. “I have seen you die far too many times.”

I scramble around for the handkerchief- I've dropped it somewhere.

“I have seen Pierre die many times, also,” she says, “and your friend Juniper, and Master Drysdell. My daughter has pointed a gun at me many times. The windows of the breakfast hall have smashed in unison many times. Many times the skies go dark and the rain runs red. Far too many times.”

“But why, Professor?” I ask, my voice shuddering. “How does this all keep happening? It's happening again now. Why can't you stop it?”

“Why couldn't you stop Emily-Rose, Marianne?” she asks. I wince. “That's a real question, my dear. All the rest of your bullies, too. Why couldn't you prevent them from doing what they did? Tell me about that.”

“Well,” I begin, slowly, “Emily-Rose had backup. If I pissed her off, I pissed off Master Drysdell and the whole board, and that... that put so many things in jeopardy. Even on her own- well, she could take away my meal tickets. Give me detention. Make me waste away. Make my life hell.”

She nods. “Go on.”

“Emily-Rose had magic, and so did everyone else,” I say, “and I don't, I've only got my bare fists.”

“Good. Think deeper.”

“In a way- when I was Marion- I was powerful, because I wanted to hurt them. But me, Professor, Marianne, I don't want to hurt anybody. But they wanted to hurt me. For some reason or another.”

“For no reason or another, dear. Simply by merit of your existence.” The candlelight flickers. “Do you think a single phonic difference in your name would really change their attitudes to someone below them? That kind of power can be very intoxicating. No child goes into that school thinking they'll sling fire or bolts of lightning at people, but give them the opportunity...”

“You think that's what it was?” And then, “you think that's what Gawain's like?”

“There's no doubt in my mind about it, sweet Marianne. Why do you think he targets children's souls?”

“Oh.”

“I've been trying to counter his moves for many more years than even he can imagine,” she says. “He'll stop at nothing to rack up as many souls as he can, and I'll stop at nothing to save as many lives as I can. Perhaps you've met dear Gregory.”

“Greg,” I say on instinct, “yes.”

“Awfully convenient that a healer is stationed next to a furious river kraken, isn't it,” she muses, “and isn't it convenient that a river kraken is provoked to rage in a spot where frightened Drysdell's students trying to escape a mass kidnapping would try and run?”

“Oh.” It is. Convenient for us, inconvenient for Gawain, and just another day in the life of Arlene's axe.

I have to think for a minute.

“Professor Lovejoy,” I say, “that's all very illuminating and stuff, but you never even answered my first question.”

She cocks an eyebrow, or at least attempts to.

“How did you get here?” I murmur. “If all this is happening and you want to stop it, why are you letting yourself rot in a jail cell? Have you given up?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” The third _oh_ is the worst.

“The years have taken their toll, as much as I would like to pretend they haven't,” she says lowly, “and I'm no longer fit to even teach a class, let alone prevent an apocalypse. Just as you repeat an early question, Marianne, I repeat an early answer-” she begins to pull the edge of her skirt up slightly- “I am made of dust and ash.”

Resting on the layers of petticoat beneath her skirt is a vaguely leg-shaped pile of sand. Her shoe sits at the end almost confused, as if it isn't really sure what to do. I notice the hand she uses to take the hem back- the thumb and forefinger of her glove flop uselessly with only the other three fingers filled.

“I entrusted the watch to you, dear,” she says, “for safekeeping. It was, after all, an anniversary present from my late husband, though he meant for me to revisit happy things and not, perhaps, this. If worst comes to worst, you may use it, but I beg you don't get addicted to the thing.”

I feel a familiar spherical presence in my left boot.

“Perhaps it may be that this world is meant to become the idle plaything of a careless sadist,” she says, her already fraught voice a churning river, “and it may be that you will have to give up. Don't fear letting go. Don't fear death, sweetheart. You'll find me on the other side.”

The tears are starting up again, bigger than before. I have to squeeze them out of my eyes just so I can see, though this blurry lens I'm forced to look through now softens the image of Professor Lovejoy a bit and therefore softens the blow of this whole situation slightly too.

“I told you, dear, not to cry.”

“Well, I can't help it.” It's a struggle finding a dry spot on the handkerchief at this point. “I wish I could tell you all about what's happened over the past few days, Professor- but it's depressing as hell. You've probably had enough of depressing shit.” Depressing shit. Depressing shit is all it is, just like a sad book. At least there's only one week of it and not some hundred years.

“So have you, by the sounds of it, my angel.” She sounds ever-so-slightly like the Professor Lovejoy of old- or is it young?- for a second there, the beautiful lady in her classroom full of roses where the evening sun turns it all to gold. It doesn't help the crying one bit. “My death is one death too many, isn't it?”

“All of them are,” I mutter.

She shifts the briefcase over to me- a gesture accompanied by a kind of _shhhhfffff_ sound, followed by her arm going limp.

“You can take everything in here,” she says, “and then go. Away from here, where I am.” Meeting my confused look, she continues: “Marianne, despite everything, you are still a child, and witnessing even one death is one death too many.”

I'm floundering in a lot of sentences starting with 'but' that I just can't finish.

“I don't want your last memories of me to be of a pile of sand in a corset, darling.” Her words are starting to prick and waver just like mine and I don't think I can handle it. “Remember nicer things. Remember the chats we used to have, remember my face when you look at your own. But forget about all this. Don't watch me die.”

I don't want to go but I don't want to watch her erode away into nothing either. I want to stay a little longer where I know I'm safe, but I can't demand any more out of a woman who's literally disintegrating into sand as we speak. What I really want is for everything to be okay, for Professor Lovejoy not to be dying, and not to be in a locked jail cell all alone, but I think that's too much to ask of the universe right now.

“Alright,” I end up saying, “I'll go.”

“Good girl.” This last smile is the worst, worse even than the prick of tears in her voice, because it barely exists on her face. I know that look in her eyes where one of her usual stoic smiles would be, but her features can barely hold it up, hold it through to its conclusion. I wish I could help her.

I collect the briefcase and stand up, and I hesitate. How do I say goodbye? I don't even think, in the foggy dream of a few nights ago where I plotted on fleeing Greenbough, I intended on saying goodbye to Professor Lovejoy. Too difficult.

Even in less corporeal dreams, all my daydreams and fantasies and dreads, I have never said goodbye to Professor Lovejoy. The Marianne of hypothesis never had to graduate Drysdell's. The Marianne of today will never graduate Drysdell's because the place is blown to pieces. I'll just have to graduate somewhere else instead. I crouch down again and give Professor Lovejoy one last hug, as gently as I can physically manage.

I settle on _“thank you for everything”_ so that I don't have to say that other fatal word. Beneath me I feel the blade of her right shoulder and then I do not. There's dust on me when I withdraw, and only one arm to hug me back.

This is me at my limit. I don't have it in me anymore to be stubborn and stay, not after I've destroyed one of her arms. I cut it short, I boil my task down to its simplest essence, and I run far away from my dying teacher. The dust I kick up when I go takes out the candle flame, and it falls away into the blackness.

 

I run back to the door because I don't really know where else to go. It's the only place with any light to see by. The briefcase opens much too easily, as though it's been waiting for me and I'm simply late to meet it. Another handkerchief is in there, which I immediately ruin. There's some food, too, bread rolls which I scarf down without really noticing the taste or texture at all. They turn to fluff in my mouth and stomach and I feel closer to a taxidermy item than a human girl. I also find a canteen of water which now I can't help but notice the taste and texture of; it swabs my mouth like silk, runs down my throat like it probably did through the creek it was piped from.

I'm left with a sort of physical obituary of Professor Lovejoy. Some of her makeup is in here- lipstick and a little powder compact, but I remember what Kirsten said when I asked to borrow hers and feel a bit discouraged. There's not much left of either, anyway: the powder is heavily used, and the little metal base has emerged to suck the rest of it into nothingness like quicksand. Only a stub remains of the lipstick, and the soft curve of a smile is worn into the tip. There's other things, reading glasses which just fuzz everything up, more matches but no candles, a pen, a minuscule bottle of gin (empty) and a little hair-comb.

Two last things attract my attention. There's a small gun, nowhere near as big as the things Lucille was waving around, but a gun nonetheless, gold-plated and a bit rusty in places. Then there are some sheets of paper bound together by pink ribbon. The whole reason the paper manages to be anywhere near as intriguing as the gun is because it's covered in my handwriting.

It's a an exam paper, dated June the 9th, with my name in the top-left corner. Then in the top-right corner there's a little inscription in red ink. It's not my writing and neither is it words: it's the number one hundred, with a circle around it.

I turn the page to the actual questions and answers, recognising more of my own handwriting, more of my own words, facts I took pains to carve into my brain last week- and it's littered with little red ticks everywhere, the occasional remark of 'Good' or 'Excellent'. I desperately thumb through looking for an explanation. Certainly there was a test on June the 9th, but this is not the way I remember it.

The final page is the only one that helps. The red ink speaks up at last:

“ _The decoy test paper was the only way I could possibly get you out of the building before the raid- I believe 'serendipity' is the word, isn't it? Self-doubt saved you then but I shouldn't count on it any longer. There is a drive and a love in your heart that will take you far, my dear, if only you should let it.”_

It's not signed, but it doesn't have to be. I know. It's fine.

I don't really know what to do with that either so I put it back in the briefcase for safekeeping. There's still the question of the gun- what do I do with that? What do I do with myself? Is there any way out of here? I want to think Professor Lovejoy told me to leave her so that I could _do_ something and not just rot away myself in a separate corner of the room at a slightly different rate.

What's supposed to happen now? Do I get rescued? Dare I question the hope Professor Lovejoy has tried so hard to send me off with? The gun is cold to the touch and suspiciously light; the paint is flaking off. Guns are on the list of things I've never researched anything about. Guns hurt- that much is obvious, at least- but how much? What can a bullet do that magic can't?

Can it blast the lock from a door? It must be able to. It's got to have some kind of a function or Professor Lovejoy wouldn't have given it to me so carelessly.

It feels weird in my hand. I don't know how to fire a gun- I mean, I do, but I don't know how to do it safely. I could fuck myself up way worse than that lock. My focus is dwindling dangerously- my mind is already tempted to go off on a tangent and wonder why Professor Lovejoy had a gun in the first place and what she would have used it for, if she ever did.

That little moment of contemplation is all the world needs to change its course. I can pick up on some tiny noises again but different ones from before, and I freeze. It's footsteps, but they're from behind the door, not from in here. That's it- just footsteps. No talking. Perhaps it's a rescuer, but a sharp drop in my stomach is telling me otherwise. Keys are jangling; the same lock I was just thinking about blasting to bits now performs a jaunty set of clunks, some kind of insouciant signal, maybe even a warning.

I step back, as far away into the light as I can while still being able to see. I grip onto the gun with everything I have. And I wait. This could be nothing. This could be someone coming to help me. Pierre, even! I don't have anything to fear.

The door prises open like a secret. A shadow blocks the light, the shadow of a tall, slender boy.

But it is not Pierre.

“Well, look who it is.” Theodore Goldsmith's grin is a sickening slash across his face, like a wound gone septic. “It's our very own Marianne Brockett.”

I hide the gun behind my back, gripping onto it all the while. “What do you want, asshole?” It's hard to be tough after something like this.

The leather of his shoes squeals as he steps in. He laughs that familiar, horrible laugh, a laugh that could curdle milk. “I said it just now, didn't I?”

“Said what?” I'm buying time. I'm retreating further into the darkness.

“My very own Marianne Brockett.” When I look for his eyes I just see a reflection of myself in the frame of his glasses, shaking, afraid. “Goodness, you never were very bright.”

The door is open right behind him- why don't I make a break for it and run, run? Why don't I?

“I imagine you don't hear this very often,” he chuckles, “but you're needed, so why don't you come along with me?”

“Fuck off,” I tell him, “fuck off, and rot.”

Why don't I run? Behind the door is a heavenly rectangle of light. I could run. So why don't I?

“Were it that you could use those words for spells,” he sighs, “and really put up some kind of real resistance, huh?”

He springs forward all of a sudden, like a hare. No, not like a hare. His face gets closer and closer and time slows down and I whip out the gun from behind my back, safety nothing, and fire-

The bullet blazes into the abyss just above his left shoulder.

I pull the trigger three more times- _click, click, click._ Nothing comes out.

“Holy _shit,_ ” he half-screams, half-guffaws, breaking out of his clean sanitised private-school boy accent for a truly filthy cackle- “did you miss me _completely?_ That's pathetic!”

I can't fire any sort of vitriol back at him. I can't fire anything at him because of this stupid piece-of-shit gun.

He leaps, pounces, I tumble backwards. The swing I aim at his head misses too. And the next.

He says something after that but I don't hear what it is. There's something in his hands, three sharp points. He grabs me by my back.

I feel the needles sink in and nothing else afterwards.

 


	23. The Witness in the Fugue

And just as her week had looped back to Marianne Brockett, so had the corridor Emily-Rose had just stumbled into. What did the world serve to do, constantly reminding her of that girl? She had drifted across the floor ghostlike at the end of the corridor for only a split second, but the tackiness of those striped stockings was unmistakable. Navy flashed between white like some kind of hypnosis. Some kind of secret message.

Following Marianne Brockett's ragdoll body down the corridor was probably a very stupid idea but she did it anyway. The place was all grey: grey brick walls, grey floor strangely smooth, the occasional unsuspecting door (grey). How could she resist a blue-white striped lollipop?

 _(Curse it all,_ she told herself, _even if she were- that tramp, a lollipop- would I follow a lollipop on a string just because? What's come over me?)_

Emily-Rose wanted to ask herself more questions, like how someone like Marianne Brockett could drift across the ground at such a speed if not through magic, why she would do such a thing, what mechanism led these two to meet again when she saw the girl seized not five minutes prior- but she had not been quite smart enough.

She chased that mirage down the hallway. Every hurried footstep felt like throwing a shotput- manually, too. The end always seemed to jump away from her when she was just close to reaching it. This stupid idea was taking more and more chunks out of her. But the crossroads hit her like a deadline, and then it was too late to reconsider it.

The dirt-caked tracks of Marianne Brockett's old boots had just clipped behind a door frame down the way to her left. Emily-Rose was compelled to step forward and investigate them. Oh, a trap, such an egregious trap, wasn't it- did she follow the path of the simpleton in following Marianne? Somehow the answer to that was still a resounding 'yes'.

This door had been pried slightly open, and sounds of distant shuffling came from within it. It creaked horribly to Emily-Rose's touch, as if every hinge cried out in protest of the disturbance. A bother: she shuffled inside.

And Marianne Brockett was there, as expected. Physically there. Mentally-

This judgement was immediately scuppered by a worse shock. The shuffling belonged to somebody else- _well, how would it belong to anyone else_ , but she could not sneer. Perhaps in some grim corner of her mind she had expected Marianne Brockett to haunt her every waking step, but the figure of Theodore Goldsmith from Pierre's dormitory had been completely unexpected.

As had been the leather straps in his hand he approached Marianne with.

He was uglier than Emily-Rose remembered, but then she didn't remember him very well- for how could she? He was one in a long list of model students picked to share rooms with a royal guard just as a refreshing lick of normalcy, a combination fit for the front cover of the prospectus.

Yet he stopped and sniffed like a hound dog now at the air. Nose like the aerial of a transmitter- was that a missing tooth?- eyes a wet slick of moss flickering toward the long triangle the door cast. The strange caricature of his face seemed to ease for a second. He shut the thing, and it moaned worse, a terrible metallic shriek that held Emily-Rose in its clamp long after the sound ceased. He hesitated, then, and moved a cabinet in front of it.

“Bit of privacy.”

He was not talking to her.

Emily-Rose had always estimated Marianne Brockett a massive dullard, faculties retaining all the sharpness of pillow down, and yet... and yet. It was very difficult to feel smug about it. It was such an unflattering position that Emily-Rose's reaction went beyond derision and straight into plain discomfort. Jaw hanging slack but right hand playing invisible piano crescendos, almost asleep; but almost, not fully, those whites of her eyes warned, swiveling in the strange light. She was like- what was she like? What was she like? The analogy was inaccessible.

Her heart was jumping in her chest in a way it had never managed before.

She wondered, also, how and where Theodore Goldsmith learned to lift whole humans like that with such a casual air.

This was when she finally paid attention to the rest of the room. Her jumping heart somersaulted down a long, dark well, landing in her knees and taking them down.

The centerpiece: a large table. She didn't know how tall this table was, but could definitely estimate how long: at least five feet and eight inches long, at least two arms and a torso wide with a few extra inches for Marianne's right hand to thrash around like a fox in a snare. Above it- a strange dangling thing the likes of which Emily-Rose lacked the proper knowledge to recognise, though it reminded her of pictures she'd seen of those underwater breathing contraptions from when before respiratory spells were properly mastered. Big mechanisms, bigger than they needed to be, full of wires and chambers.

 _How Marianne Brockett could use one of those right now,_ a thought whispered to Emily-Rose, _how the woozy half-light of the room looks like dirty water, how she's drowning in it._ Theodore moved as if his legs didn't bother him.

“Can you hear me?” Emily-Rose's heart really did feel like it would stop for a second there, but then the boy flicked the catatonic Marianne's ear. “I'm sure you can.”

The thudding of her blood slowed to a hush, as though a theater performance was about to start, but nothing else felt this way. Some kind of distant groan came from the back of Marianne's throat, though it had no melody.

“Look, if you don't like it, you should've done as I told you to.” Theodore's voice was loud enough for Emily-Rose to hear, even as she remained frozen some distance near the door, but had chosen to croon directly into Marianne's ear for some reason of his own. “Now it'll just be easier. Not for you, I mean.”

He withdrew briefly, fiddling with one of the leather straps that indubitably kept Marianne's errant hand from violence. “It's a shame I can't show you what I made, though. You appreciate biology, don't you? I see all those books in your room. Bet you never thought I could make another human all on my own. They'll tell you it's not been done.”

His voice was rollicking with a kind of crass confidence that could not lie. The room's odd smell hit Emily-Rose at long last, and possibly at the wrong time. It was like what she imagined a butcher's shop to smell like, though she had never dallied in them; raw meat and blood, an instant queasy hit to her stomach. It was only a smell but it seemed to squelch and to shimmer as it was carried on the air from the other side of the room.

There was a section of the wall jutting out that prevented the room from being too open, but it still freely revealed its secrets to Emily-Rose. There was a symmetrical setup: long operating table with mask appliance, Marianne on it.

If what Theodore said was to believed- and who lied to unconscious ears, anyway?- then...

Emily-Rose felt choked, though her tie had long slipped from its knot.

The thing had her ugly clothes, and all. It was no perfect copy but by that virtue it _was._ Perhaps the real Marianne could be cleaned and scrubbed up to neatness given considerable effort, but then this fake one was a patchwork, a network of different skins, and no soap or lotion would unify those. And then- the clothes, the same standard-issue Brockett rags maybe, but with different rips and tears. A lengthy lashing of black ink crept up the side of the fake's ugly knitted vest.

“Those were somebody else's gloves in your drawers at Drysdell's, weren't they?” Theodore's grin now was weirdly saccharine, almost ready to start oozing sunshine-yellow syrup everywhere. “So don't get angry I took your clothes. It'd be hypocritical.”

She wondered how Theodore had caught the tail-end of her thoughts like that, and a shiver ripped into her. There was some synergy in this room that her invisibility cloak did not inoculate against.

“Whose gloves were they, Marianne? A boyfriend's? Oh, I should tell Pierre. He'll be heartbroken.”

Emily-Rose wanted her guard's name out of that disgusting, slavering mouth.

Theodore had started to climb up onto the surface of the table, and the supports mewled.

“I made a body to host Marion in, since having you around is no longer useful, you see.”

Marianne's knees were now trapped between his, and squirmed.

“It's made of skin grafts I've been saving. Quick, easy, cheap, touched by more hands than you can name. Passed around, as it were. Just like the real thing.”

Now that disgusting slavering mouth spat words that weren't so confusing as the sentence preceding them, Emily-Rose could recognise them as similar to some of her own she'd spoken in the past, but she did not want them back now.

“I don't mind, of course. I'm just doing my job. Pierre won't want half-eaten candy that's been rotting on the floor, and neither will most. Fortunately, I've got no such qualms.”

Theodore had taken something from his labcoat pocket. It was a small knife. He hooked it beneath the not-quite-white shirt, and ripped through it like paper.

Had there been anything there to throw up, Emily-Rose would have thrown up. All of her tentative, shaky judgments held in this dark alcove of the room immediately jumped from a ledge in her mind and died.

He was putting his hands on her.

“You tried to reject me-” his voice was a low growl, his breath like smoke- “ _you_ tried to reject _me_ \- all those times- do you know how insulting that was? Just think, if anyone found out, I'd be a laughing-stock.”

The locus of that 'anyone' had her planted firmly at the core, Emily-Rose knew. If she told people they should laugh- they would. She thought herself not one for laughter, but what had she done all those times when some vague insolence on Marianne's part had put her guard out of commission for the day? Would she not react the same if she heard some other student with an average social standing had gotten rejected by someone with all the charm and magical ability of clothing lint? _Yes._ Yes, she would have done, she couldn't have denied it.

He was burrowing under her clothes with ferocity, some sort of incredibly determined louse or gnat. And he was burrowing into Emily-Rose's mind. The situation felt so geared to mock her that she felt terrified of her invisibility cloak all of a sudden, as perhaps her real one had been replaced with a joke-shop dummy somewhere and her appearance was just as apparent as the handsaws and hammers hanging on the wall, as flamingly obvious in the room as she had been the day she was born.

Marianne was yelping, ever so quiet but still there, eclipsed under his mighty breaths like a little flute against the Royal Orchestra. Occasional nonsense words, burbled. She did not cry for help yet. _But could she? Wouldn't you?_

Emily-Rose's knees were knocking together, and it was then she started to feel self-conscious; tall, but not that tall. Not tall enough. Soft skin, but not that soft. When her kneecaps hit the connection sent reverberations all throughout her bones. _Such empty, hollow bones, hardly a strong structure._ She was confounded by everything in front of her, all the sounds and tangling of bodies and oh, lord, that smell-

Her faculties were not sharp enough. She knew there were things she did not understand about the world, and those things were right here, scored to the strange melody of Theodore's laugh. It was building and building, and the more Marianne beneath him seemed disquieted the more he seemed to enjoy himself. _Do something, you idiot._ But Emily-Rose just stood there.

It occurred to her that not only was her own body an embarrassingly youthful sketch, a work-in-progress: so was Marianne's. Her skin was like dough, kneaded. But dough wouldn't bruise and go red like so.

When the scene came to a halt Theodore's laugh was a strange whoop, almost comical, hitting some nerve somewhere in Emily-Rose's hearing that made her flinch. Marianne heard it too and was about to take her boldest leap into the waking world thus far, head jerking up to scream a great, profound scream- but her efforts were sequestered when he slammed the oxygen mask down on her mouth.

“Did you forget, too? That there's still work needs doing?” Theodore's slick voice was in great dissonance with his appearance now, sweat shimmering on his temples and mouth a crescent of sick satisfaction. “Pity, pity, pity. Silly girl. I'll be back for you.”

_Why did you let that happen, Emily-Rose?_

He swiveled from the table with a kind of cavalier air Emily-Rose found all too disturbing, sorting out zips and buckles. He went over to something in the corner Emily-Rose hadn't noticed. It was another mysterious contraption, but different in shape- if Emily-Rose felt like comparing it to anything, perhaps she would have compared it to a primitive transmitter, all knobs and jacks and strange keys.

He muttered something then- “before or after you're killed, I've yet to decide.”

His fingers danced with the keys on the machine. “Isn't this laboratory wonderful, by the way?” he remarked, as though the reeling girl palsied on the table were his friend. “Miles better than what we had at Drysdell's, don't you think? Master Gawain's got a scientific mind, just like me. My talents are finally getting honoured the way they deserve. I'll be sneered at by the likes of you no longer.”

Was that what this was about? Just a bit of derision? But no, it couldn't have been- if this was what just a little mockery could push a person to, then what would Marianne...

The system of machines, of odd contraptions, rose to life like a dragon from sleep: slow, at first, but then it roared and shook the room to its core. There was the sound of a great rushing, a tornado, but the only indication of a happening was of an abrupt fit of writhing agony Marianne took on. The rest of the room remained still, solemn witnesses.

It was so loud, so loud. As though someone had taken a meat cleaver to Emily-Rose's eardrums.

Marianne's arms flailed and twisted in their shackles; her legs buckled. There was some strange metamorphosis going on here that Emily-Rose couldn't quite place. Whatever that mouthpiece was extracting from her, Emily-Rose felt it was taking it from the very fabric of Marianne as she knew her. She couldn't imagine the suffering little waif on the table smashing windows, picking fights, talking back. She had never seen those eyes cry as they did even half-open as they were, boiling over with hot tears that splashed down her face. Bravado was gone.

_So is yours, and you were never under that machine, you awful, selfish girl._

There was a piercing moment among the terrible noise that broke Emily-Rose from her trance.

The voice in her head that had spouted criticism the whole time had not been her own. It had an accent, actually, traces of some foreign island in some of its syllables, and it utterly dripped in rage.

_Tell me, Head Girl, Princess of Anachronia, where is your desire to lord over your environment now where it is actually needed? How long do I have to shout at you- no, how long does Marianne need to suffer for you to move and help her?_

Every intrusive thought hit her heart like a whip. All she could think to respond with was _who are you?_

_I am one of your subjects who had their soul ripped out so yours would not be. Did we suffer for this stone statue who will not fight?_

Tears were falling down her own face now. _I couldn't possibly. If Theodore gets me, he'll offer me to Gawain and I'll die. We all will._

_Help is already here. Open the door. He is distracted._

Split between shame and fear, Emily-Rose sprang towards the door on reeling feet possessed with a terrified giddiness. The noise had stopped but noise in general hadn't; Theodore made casual remarks to the catatonic Marianne now that covered up the scrape of the cabinet pushed away across the floor. Pushing down on the handle, then, was easy.

The door smacked Emily-Rose full-force in the face for her efforts.

Blocks of fiery orange, black and pink were the first bits of information her eyes could recover from their daze.

“It's just as I thought, Daryll, he's in here _I knew that was his voice-”_

The new entrant's voice flew across the room like a punch and knocked all the air out of Theodore's lungs when he responded.

“Juniper? How in the hell did you find me?”

Wait. That was another name she knew, wasn't it?

Her suspicions were confirmed: Drysdell's student, Brockett friend, barely-five-foot mass of divine fury. Juniper Carroll was much quicker to denounce the static image Emily-Rose had retained of her, knuckles crackling in their fists like thunder and a tattered suit jacket slung over her tiny shoulders.

“I've an intuition for you,” Juniper Carroll hissed. “You think I didn't learn to recognise your voice, the traces you leave, the fucked-up labs you lurk in, Theodore?”

She was followed in by a contrasting accomplice, pepper to salt- oh, but she knew him too, not by name but by those eyes like a burning sun- “This is really him, Juniper?”

“Yes,” she growled, “but I'll deal with him. Go help Marianne.” A pause, a gap of communication. “The girl on the table.”

The boy had a hook for a hand. Emily-Rose could not feel scared of it now. Truly heinous things could be done by hands without any suchlike thing bolted onto them. He tore at the leather straps that bound Marianne to the table until they bound her no longer, and then tore them from the table and threw them to the ground. Theodore flinched. Marianne yowled, eyes snapping to full width but not to full awareness, nonsense tumbling from her bottom lip and into the crooks of her elbows- her fingers clutched at her bare chest as though to staunch a wound.

Juniper blinked and paused for a moment, as if to wait for the strange words to crawl and pass her by, and she seized up with twice the anger from before. “Drugs. You drugged her out of her mind.”

Emily-Rose wondered why she hadn't thought to make that connection earlier.

The boy offered Marianne a supportive arm, which she took, though in the same way one took hold of a life-raft.

“Girls' bodies aren't playgrounds, Theodore.” Juniper's pink hands outstretched themselves from their fists and into spread claws- _perfect_ spell-casting form, Emily-Rose thought, almost a textbook diagram. “You messed with mine, but you won't get away with what you've done here. I won't let you.”

She threw out her hand and a swarm of sewing needles materialised in the air, looking more like a swarm of hornets. For a split-second, Theodore looked like a pincushion with an angry cloud of needles obscuring him from Emily-Rose's view- then the split-second passed and he looked like an effigy.

His glasses had protected him from involuntary blindness, but one solitary needle had gotten wedged in the lens, some grim reminder not to breathe out too soon. Little specks of blood were starting to bloom on the white of his hands and his labcoat like poppies.

“Daryll,” Juniper said, and the boy cocked his head in acknowledgement, shooting a glare which shook Emily-Rose to the soul just to observe. An orangeish glow ignited around Theodore, and every slight movement of his froze.

Juniper brushed off her skirts, and adjusted her hat.

“Never did like him.”

She turned. Her face was monolithic, deadly serious even in all its girlish sweetness, and she sat next to Marianne on the table. “Marianne. Can you hear me? I want you to try and snap out of it, if you can. Do you think you can?”

“Hound dog,” Marianne sobbed, “Hound dog, out to get me, my legs got broke-”

“No,” said Juniper gently, “that's all in your head. There's no dogs here.”

Marianne sniveled, and the boy Daryll shifted from one foot to another. “But I can't feel them.”

“Yeah, that's probably the drugs.” Juniper clasped the other girl's wrist. “You'll feel them again soon, probably.”

The boy Daryll proffered a handkerchief which, ignored, got taken by Juniper, who mopped Marianne's tear-streaked face. “Thanks, Professor.”

Juniper shook her fire-coloured head. “No, not Professor. Juniper. It's Juniper.”

“Juniper,” Marianne echoed blearily. “Juniper.”

“Yes. Remember me?”

Tremors started again at Marianne's feet and worked their way up to her head, and she started crying all over again. “You hate me, Juniper. I was- I was a bad friend to you, and I even stole your cardigan.” She plucked at the little lace cuff. “I stole it and now I'm wearing it even though it's not mine.”

“No,” said Juniper, and dabbed again at her face. “I don't want that cardigan anymore, and I was going to make you one for the winter anyway. Keep it.”

Soft footsteps were padding around outside close to the door, but they were too distracted to notice until the door opened just a little fraction more, hitting Emily-Rose in the shoulder. A soft shadow fell on the ground and a biting, preternatural chill over the room.

This one Emily-Rose definitely recognised.

“Oh, Marianne, there you are-” Pierre stumbled into the room as if a lucid dreamer, picking up the girl's hand- “I was so worried, and I couldn't find you- oh, Juniper, you too? How did you get here? For that matter, _why_ are you here?”

Juniper's mouth pressed closed, but a cursory glance towards the other end of the room gave it all away.

“Theodore,” said Pierre. He dropped Marianne's hand. “Theodore.” The impugned's threatened eyes met Pierre's, though the latter had dropped their expression. “Theodore, what did you do?”

Emily-Rose swore icicles were starting to grow on the rafters. Marianne had fallen silent now like everyone else, though was now using her free hands to pull her cardigan closer into herself. The boy Daryll had pinned his gaze on Theodore's mouth, as though to expect words to come out. But for a few minutes the room was utterly, painfully quiet.

Pierre looked back at Marianne, and his sight seemed to go down a path that unfurled from her rash-red eyes to her ruddy face, then to a sizable scrape on her collarbone, and finally down the great gash carved in her shirt. His spine stiffened. He turned back.

“I'm going to ask you again.” His voice was quiet. _“What did you do, Theodore?”_

Even the boy Daryll had flinched at that one.

Pierre paced forward without waiting for an answer. Frost was starting to crawl up the furniture like mold.

“Nothing you can undo.” Theodore's voice was very gruff and quiet, as he had had to shake the reply from an unmoving jaw, but the temerity of it pricked the air like a thorn.

“And what do you mean by that?” Pierre, finally, could tower over him- Theodore's present situation forced him into a perpetual half-slump.

“Hurt me all you like,” the ends of Theodore's mouth trembled against the grip of his enthrallment, “you're still stuck with used goods.”

“Perhaps you don't realise the position you're in,” said Pierre, and withdrew the royal sword from the scabbard on his back. “Do you really think your vile tongue will save you now?”

“Please-” Theodore said, in what may have been a sneer- “you could never use that thing. Violence makes you cry. You can't even stand up to your damn cousin. Don't make me laugh while I can't; it's such a waste.”

Emily-Rose's hands had started to go blueish.

“Perhaps you're right,” said Pierre. He put the royal sword down on the ground, barely stooping to do so. “I don't think I could ever hurt someone with a sword.”

Then he reached to unstrap the royal-crested scabbard from his back, and having it in his hands, bludgeoned Theodore in the face with it. Both frames and lenses shattered, and Theodore's glasses fell to the floor no longer glasses but a useless aggregation of shrapnel.

Pierre stepped back, maybe to admire his handiwork, but made no hesitation in swinging at him once again, and then once more. Blood did not blossom but it flew, and a couple of teeth tumbled from his lips like tree fruit, and soon Theodore's nose pointed an altogether different direction than it ever did originally.

He took another step back, another breath in, and was about to run in again when Juniper jumped up to stop him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Maybe don't.” Emily-Rose could only just catch the edge of her words.

“Why not?” Pierre's tone was as steely and sharp as the blade on the floor. “He deserves it.”

“I mean, he does.” The tiny drop of relentment in Juniper's words set her a long way away from him. “I won't argue with you about that. But...” she jerked her head towards the elephant in the room, who appeared to be trying to hide within the tiny cardigan- “don't you think... you know... maybe she's seen enough? That's all I'm trying to say.”

Pierre's arms relaxed, and he set his feet firmly on the ground. “No, you're right. I apologise.”

Juniper withdrew with a nod and a chuckle so half-hearted it was more like a series of breaths. The frost vanished from the air, though the ice on the walls and furniture did not recede, and Pierre returned the sword and then the scabbard to their original places. Apparently sensing the change in atmosphere enough to take advantage of it, Juniper clicked her fingers and the tear in Marianne's shirt stitched itself back up again somewhat cackhandedly.

“There are empty rooms in the area,” the boy Daryll noted stiffly, “which might be safer places for Marianne to recover in.”

“Good,” Marianne muttered, muffled by the cardigan. “Gonna be sick. Need to get out.”

“Then we'd better leave,” said Pierre.

He took Marianne by the shoulder and frogmarched her out of the room without sparing a second glance or word.

All breaths hitched in the wake of the exit. The air was no less heavy, and concern pressed on the boy Daryll's angular face where worry fettered Juniper's round one.

“Was he...” the boy fumbled with words for a second, “...alright?”

“I mean, maybe,” said Juniper. “Probably. I'm not sure. He won't hurt her. He's not going to do that, at least.”

“Anywhere other than here should be safe.” Emily-Rose found herself liking the way the boy Daryll delivered facts- they were clean, to-the-point. “If Theodore was under a directive, Gawain may send someone to check on him soon. And for now, we shouldn't get caught.”

“Mm. Best not.” Juniper's eyes were deep with contemplation, like the hollow of a hazel tree. “We'll leave too.”

They did.

 

Hands were still blue in the cold, abandoned laboratory. The splotched hair of the fake's arms stood to attention in the chill. Her eyes, though vacuous and empty, refused to shut yet.

 


	24. Kindred

Not long afterwards Arlene found Theodore as he had been left, and it had made her sneer.

“Are those sewing needles?”

For all her derision, there was something very aesthetically pleasing about the whole scene.  Sewing needles- a murder weapon hidden in plain sight.  She couldn't believe she hadn't thought of those before!  Sewing needles were not the real issue here, though.

A thin line of blood dribbled from Theodore's lip, but otherwise his mouth did not move.  Bruises like stormclouds had started to flourish under his translucent skin.  How weird and naked his face looked with no glasses like that.  She looked for a cause, and that telltale orange light pulsed out from him.

“That’s Daryll Harper's ESP, isn't it?  My, my.  I guess I'm not surprised that filthy little coward's a traitor.”  She clicked a ruby red heel on the ground in impatience, waiting for acknowledgement.  Some kind of answer.

Then her patience shattered brittle as glass and she stamped the heel in question on his leg.

“So why did you let him catch you?  Inept sack of _shit!_   You really wasted my time, you know that?  Your job was simple!  And now I have to finish it off all by myself.”

She sighed a sigh like sandpaper, and strutted over to the fake on the table.  “What an almighty idiot.  Right, Marion?”

The fake was no more responsive than the needle-studded Theodore, but Arlene nodded at a reply anyway.  She reached for the mouthpiece hanging from the ceiling and attached it to the clone's misshapen lips, sashaying over to the console almost with an air of performance art about her.  The walls shook again with the great cacophony that had wracked them not half an hour before, though Arlene stood beaming, utterly unfettered, watching keen for the first sign of life to flicker on the clone's face.

Life did not flicker, it surged. 

“Hello again,” Arlene chirped.  “Feeling alright?”

The former returned the greeting by thumping her fists on the operating table repeatedly, yelling a great, glottal yell that seemed to shake with a rage so profound it almost trembled in fear of itself. 

Arlene couldn't deny the clone wasn't pleasant to look at- like some art student tried to draw the host body not quite knowing about proper anatomy, proportions, suchlike things that make drawings look like people- but nonetheless, she couldn't quite stop looking anyway.  The scream held her heart in its hot grasp like the embrace of a lover.  No doubt this ugly thing made her eyes glaze over.  That _rage._

She unstrapped Marion's limbs from the table- stronger than the real thing, apparently, muscle tissue packed in real dense, as she'd been made to understand. 

“Filthy son of a _bitch_ ,” Marion spat, pointing to Theodore as soon as she'd had an arm free.  “So _humiliating-_ I'm going to kill him, I'm going to fucking kill him-”

Sweat had emerged on Theodore's forehead, though it had not been free to indulge in gravity; it was all imprisoned by that orange glow, smattered in a shiny lake across his broken skull.

“He's still alive,” said Arlene.  “Would you like to kill him, Marion?  Would you?”

“Obviously- dumb slut-”

The pejorative rolled off Arlene like rain on a roof, and she flashed her toothiest smile.  “Let me get you something for that.” 

She opened a metal cupboard behind her with care but also with certainty; it may not have been her laboratory, but by now she knew well enough what the Master liked to keep in cupboards, and produced an axe from its depths.  “Doesn't this bring back memories?”

Marion snatched the axe from the palms of her red satin gloves and turned to Theodore, fake eyes boiling, mouth frothing.

Nothing Arlene did not expect to happen happened within the next few moments. 

“So, what _did_ Theodore do?” she asked, toying with the edge of her petticoat.  “Come on, Marion, get me all caught up.”

Marion said nothing, but threw the axe down on the remains of Theodore Goldsmith in what may have been a cue to shut up.  If Theodore was unrecognisable as Theodore before, now he was unrecognisable as a human being with a head and limbs.  The corner of the room matched Arlene.

“What lovely work,” she said.  “How about you do the same to Marianne, hmm?”

The clone’s ear twitched, and she glared as though the suggestion had been a completely unreasonable one.

“Well, that’s probably what you’re meant to do, isn’t it?”  Arlene posed a histrionic finger to her pouting red mouth.  “If Theodore did what he was told, he would’ve killed Marianne himself, but obviously our Theodore is a waste of space and breath.  Master still wants that girl disposed of.  She’s a liability, you know.”

“Liability,” Marion echoed, her already-rough voice growling.  “Stole food from under my nose.  Tortured me.”

“Then she deserves to be killed!” Arlene’s mouth stretched into another wide smile, the apples of her cheeks becoming like bright red warning lights.  “People who resist are just the _worst._ ”

“The worst,” said Marion.  She stepped away into the main section, and after some rumination, spoke again.  “The worst.  The worst.”  Then she walked out of the room.

Echoing down the corridor: _“The worst!  The worst!  The worst!”_

Arlene sighed in Marion’s absence.  It was nice not to have to look at Marion, since she was so ugly- now that she had the time to really think, Arlene fancied she looked like the dolls she’d had as a little girl, where she’d ripped out their hair and scribbled all over their faces and twisted all their limbs.  Marion wasn’t that idiot Theodore’s kind of ugly, though, where his top lip had a constant sneer and the little knob of cartilage at his throat bobbed up and down every time he talked like a bit of fishing bait.  Marion was pure, pure ugly, unashamedly horrible inside and out, and she made Arlene’s insides and legs fizz with admiration and a funny kind of excitement. 

And speaking of ugliness-

She thought for a minute a sudden blind spot had taken her left eye and posed a sloppy white-brown blob over the doorway, and blinked a few times.  But the blind spot started to move around, and to shout at her, and Arlene could only sigh.

“Arlene!  What have you done?  What have you _done?_ ”  Imogen’s voice was just as reedy and annoying as ever, and the pest’s clothes just as shabby as always.  “I knew you were bad- but this- but this- it’s a completely different level.”

Imogen pointed a finger at the wreckage of Theodore Goldsmith.  Arlene could only roll her eyes.

“How did you get out of the cellar, Imogen?  I put you down there so you’d stay down there, you know.”

“Well, I don’t have to do _shit_ what you want me to anymore!”  So inarticulate- what was that education for?  “You’ve destroyed our family and tried to destroy me for way too long.  It ends here.”

Arlene sighed.  “You’re the most annoying little sister ever.”

“I’m not your little sister anymore.”

“Fine- how about little brother?”- said flashing a grin at the suspenders, oversized shirt, the peek of a white chest binder beneath.  Her own handiwork.

“And I’m not your little brother anymore, either.”

“Well, then, what are you?” Arlene asked, stifling a giggle.  “You’ve got to be one or the other.  Nature, you know?  Throw tantrums all you want, you can’t fight nature.”

“You don’t care about nature, so just shut up.  Hey-” Imogen now pointed their stubby finger at Arlene’s torso, which felt like it was distending out of its corset in laughter.  “You’re an alchemist.  But I studied alchemy too, remember, because you stole from the books that I read first.  And the stuff you do should be against the laws of equivalent exchange, you don’t use enough raw material-”

“Oh, sue me, I don’t care.”

“You’re a cheat, a liar, a dirty criminal, you manipulate everyone.”  Imogen’s face was heating up.  “It should have been- you should have been locked up in that cellar, not me.  You shouldn’t be allowed to see the light of day.”

“But here I am!” 

“You say _I’m_ an annoying sibling- imagine how I feel, Arlene.  The blood you’ve got all over your hands is smeared all over mine because we’re related.”

“Oh, please,” Arlene sighed, twanging at the wrists of her gloves.  “I wouldn’t wear these if I wanted blood on my hands, now, would I?”

“I hate that this is even a thing you think about.”  The veins in Imogen’s balled-up fists were showing.  “You’re completely out of your mind.  You’ve been out of it for ages.”

“Don’t be jealous, now,” said Arlene, “that I’m free to do what I want and kill who I please.  Anyone growing up in our town would want the same thing.  You’re all just too scared that your true feelings are gross and icky and- what’s the word- _wrong._ ”

“You didn’t always want to be a murderer.”

“What a sparkling observation!  Five-year-old Arlene wanted to go to the moon.”

“Yes, and you killed her before you killed anyone else.  You were my sister, once.  Hell, once we felt the same things, had the same struggles.  We could’ve understood each other, related to each other.  But you’re beyond all understanding.”

“Cry me a river, Imogen.”  Arlene kicked at an orphaned foot on the floor.  “I don’t care.”

“Just think- if Ethel Gore thought you were ugly before, she’d think you inhuman now.”

The frost on the walls melted in an instant.

“What do you know about Ethel?” Arlene’s glare was like a thousand swords and a thousand scabbards.  “You don’t know her, so shut your unsightly little mouth before I shut it for you, alright?”

“All this because a pretty girl didn’t like you,” Imogen muttered, “and you couldn’t just stop and process your feelings for even a minute.  No, you had to start murdering people just to feel on top again.”

“Don’t let’s pretend you can psychoanalyse me all of a sudden,” Arlene spat.  “Don’t let’s pretend I’m all screwed up like you and your perverted friends are.”

“Nobody’s pretending you’re screwed up, Arlene.”  Imogen was starting to pace forward.  “You _are_ screwed up.  You’re never going to the moon.  The only place you’re going- well, it’s very far down, and it’s not nice.”

A cackle sparked at Arlene’s throat.  “Was that a _threat?_ You could never kill me, Imogen.  You haven’t the guts.”

Imogen continued walking until their forehead grazed Arlene’s chin.  “There’s nothing you’d like more than me trying to kill you, Arlene.  Right?”

“Emphasis on _‘trying’_.”  The spittle from her laughter flecked the brim of Imogen’s hat.

“Right.  So I won’t bother with that.  Instead-”

Imogen gripped Arlene by her tiny waist, and threw her back into the cupboard behind her, kicking the door shut.

Arlene screamed and kicked back, but only succeeded in trapping a foot between the doors and scraping her ankle horribly- at which opportunity Imogen seized the axe from atop Theodore’s bloody remains and placed it atop the doorknobs. 

The heel of the axe’s blade had a slight curvature to it which allowed it to slip over and around the knob, and the doors were shut on Arlene Underwood.

Imogen drew breaths that felt like smoke in their lungs.  Arlene yowled insults and curses, pounding at the cupboard with her fists.  They looked around- on the other side of the room, a cabinet had been upended and laid on its side near the entrance.  Without thinking Imogen dragged it over to the cupboard, shoving it up against the door. 

It probably wasn’t only the binder that made them feel choked by now.  This cupboard turned Arlene into a poltergeist, thumping and rattling and screaming.  Were more reinforcements needed?  Imogen didn’t really know, but found tables and chairs and lockers in abundance now they were afforded the time to look, and threw them at the cupboard in desperation. 

A matrix of woodwork buried the closet when Imogen was finished.  Arlene would not be escaping for a very long time.  Even her screams were muffled, lost in the maze of enclosed spaces.

Two wreckages confronted Imogen.  The identity of the dismembered boy eluded them, but never in all of Imogen’s dreams could they have imagined doing such a thing.  Their hands had not dealt in blood, only in furniture.  A little pang of guilt stung at their stomach anyhow.

It was with a little sob that Imogen left their parting shot- “you’ve got plenty of time for self-reflection now, Arlene.”

They turned back from the room and from the corridor.  The only thing left to do, it seemed, was to return to that rose path, and immerse themselves in that kind of sweetness which was peerless, unequivocal, unmarred by the sickness of murder.  Somebody else could figure out the bigger picture.  Imogen had had enough of their ex-sister’s issues.


	25. The Moon and Stars

I stare into the drain. My consciousness has been so much like a boomerang lately and when I get my bearings together my head swings from side to side. I am tiny. Someone has scraped at me and ripped some of my insides out. I feel upset about it. I don’t know if I should cry about it. I think I’ve cried a lot. I try to cry. I throw up instead.

Most of it goes down the drain. I reach for the tap just above my head and turn it. The water comes rushing out of the faucet and bile comes rushing up my throat. The more I’m sick the sicker I feel. I’m not envious of Pierre, standing at a distance having to overhear all this. My knees knock together as I’m kneeling and I almost lose my balance. One last upchuck- three’s a crowd. All I can do after that is cough. I cup some of the water into my hands, drink it and immediately spit it out. Anything to get the taste out of my mouth. I picture my face bright green, like in a cheesy drawing. When the water washes the base of the metal sink clean, I watch the eyes of the reflection of Marianne. Blue as the sky outside, grey as the sink she’s just emptied her guts into, a sea that rolls free. My lips are encrusted with something- better scrub at it- and there’s something in my complexion I’ve lost, but otherwise I still stare back at myself. Nobody else.

I try and get another drink from the tap but my hands are trembling so much the water falls straight through my fingers. I check Pierre’s not looking and take a drink straight from the tap like a pig or some other farm animal. It splashes all over my face. I swear my elbow creaks when I move to wipe it off.

When I slump against the unit I do not black out. I just stare, blinking. My eyelashes feel like great big peacock feathers stuck to my lids.

Pierre turns at this, his hands knitted together, knuckles white. “Alright?” he asks.

“I’ve been better,” I say, “if I’m completely honest.”

I must cough again. Pierre doesn’t say anything else. He trains his eyes on the various things littering the room. There’s some cogs in a vertical case, but they move out of key with one another. Further away a big metal arm punches itself repeatedly. A smaller version of one of those tin giant units is chained to the wall; its design is less smooth than its peers, and it twitches, twitches, twitches. It unsettles my stomach to look at for too long, so I don’t.

All is silent, except for ticking and twitching and out-of-tune click-clacking. The taps sputter. Really it’s not that silent at all.

“That was a joke, by the way. I feel fucking grim.”

This does not diffuse the tension.

For a moment I might throw up again, but it’s only a feeling. I’d prefer another vomiting session to whatever this scenario is right now, faulty mechanics in a strange grey room, Pierre still and solemn as the grave. I could say his name, get his attention, but I don’t have anything to say to follow it up with. I just wish somebody would say something, and I can’t say anything. The hound-dogs chasing me and jumping on me have bolted down the sink too. It’s probably safe to say I don’t remember a thing of the past half-hour or so. ‘Remember’. I’m so damn sick of that word, and its antithesis.

_“Marianne, I am so sorry.”_

Just the presence of Felina’s voice is a panacea to pain. Anything to fill my ears. “Sorry about what?”

_“Just now.”_

“I’ve been sick before.”

_“No, before that.”_

Oh.

_“Yes.”_

I keep forgetting she hears my internal monologue too, not just things I think straight at her.

_“Please do not worry about that, Marianne.”_

Given our present situation it’s sort of hard not to worry about things.

_“Yes. I understand.”_

She doesn’t say anything for a bit.

_“You know, Marianne, it is not your job to deal with Gawain, technically speaking. Nobody would blame you if you turned back, to where it is safe for you. Even I would not.”_

“Why say this all of a sudden?” Felina Ruiz, sporting champion, top student, actual telepath, six-pack-haver. These words don’t sound like things she’d say.

_“Well, they are my words, and I am saying them to you. It may not sound like it, but they are. You bear an unfair burden on your shoulders.”_

I could barely take care of a cat back in the day. She’s got a point.

_“Molly is a perfectly healthy cat. If she suffered problems, she knew to come to me for treatment at the sanctuary. She did not resent you for your struggle, and neither will I.”_

“Really? Huh. Thank you.” I could indeed be cuddling a cat right now, but there’s one thing on my mind, and that’s that I don’t even remember the latest instalment in my ‘struggle’.

_“It’s- well.”_ Hearing her hesitate doesn’t particularly fill me with confidence. _“I’m not really sure how to put it. I did try to help you at the time, but there was not much I could really do, not in my current state.”_

Is she going to tell me, or not?

She doesn’t say anything.

I try and enlist another source. “Hey, Pierre,” I say out loud, “do you know what actually happened to me back there?”

He damn near jumps out of his skin, but he damn near jumps out of his skin a good few seconds after the silence of the room is shattered. “N-not exactly.”

If he’s going to stand there in silence I wish he could stand at an angle where I can see his face, not just a cloud of hair. “Well, do you know anything at all? I really don’t.”

I swear I see a knee tremble. A single chunk of brick has flaked off the tower of his composure. “A… few details.”

“Felina’s being all vague about it,” I add in for good measure. Would you consider that snitching, Felina? Sorry. (No answer.)

He rocks back and forth slightly on one foot, pulling at a particularly coiled-up curl of his. Sometimes I wonder if he sets his hair in pins every night like Kirsten. Or like Professor Lovejoy.

Pierre doesn’t even know about what became of her.

The term for this is I think ‘stalemate’, though there’s probably a better one out there. A draw. One withheld set of information versus another. I miss dictionaries, thesauri, knowing the right words for things.

“What happened in there,” I begin, slowly as to not barrage him with questions, “that you can’t tell me about, Pierre? Why do you have to keep it a secret from me?”

Pierre didn’t keep the fact that he’s a royal guard and that Emily-Rose is a bit more important than a head prefect from me, but then that was Pierre running for his life in a forest in the stranglehold of night. This Pierre is a retrospective one, a vintage Pierre, the Pierre of last week and the week before that and the past few years who paces around corridors in his nice shoes looking pensive and occasionally turning to me to ask me questions I don’t understand. Only I am asking the questions, and he is being quiet, and he is far away from me.

I do not like it one bit.

“Come on, say something,” I tell him. “Why won’t you tell me anything? Why do you just keep standing there like that?”

It’s verbal puke this time. I didn’t mean to shout at him, I really didn’t, but he jolts and turns to face me and there’s tears trickling down his cheeks.

“Oh, my god-” I’ve seen him crying before but those were happy tears- “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at you like that I’m so sorry please don’t cry I didn’t mean it that way-”

I scramble to my feet which proves a difficult task but I do it anyway and run over to him to yank the handkerchief out of his pocket which I somehow know he has even though he’s still just standing there, letting the tears fall and not doing anything about it. I try and start mopping at his face but then he places a hand on my wrist.

“No, don’t. Don’t apologise.”

I can only stare at him, dumbfounded.

“Felina said something to me just now,” he says.

“Damn. She can speak to you too?” He gives me a _‘that’s kind of off-topic right now, Marianne’_ sort of look through his reddened eyes. “Okay, okay. What did she say?”

“Well, the good news,” he begins, after taking a hasty breath and squaring his shoulders, “is that you were taken there to have Marion extracted from you and put into a new vessel. So she’s not in your head anymore.”

“Well, that sounds pretty good.” More than good, but that’s besides the point. “How come she’s telling you this, not me? I thought I was the only one she could talk to with her telepathy or something.”

“We’re closer and closer to where her soul is, now, so her perception of other minds is improving.” He delivers this line matter-of-factly, like a lecturer. His shoulders look fresh from a factory mould; he stands like a creature completely unfamiliar with the concept of standing forced to follow instructions written entirely in wax crayon. “So that’s how she can talk to me.”

“Right. Right.” His left ankle dallies with the floor at a strained angle. His temples are damp, but I can’t tell if it’s from tears or from sweat and it’d feel invasive to try and find out. “You don’t want to tell me the bad part, do you?”

His whole face twinges.

I remember the Pierre with a halo of lamplight on his copper hair who calmed me down when I panicked. I try and be a little more like him.

“You know what? It’s alright. I’ll find out from someone else later when we’re less in the thick of things.” I tuck the handkerchief back into his pocket for him, patting his rigid shoulder. “It’s obviously distressing you. It’s not like I need to know that badly.”

The attack unit chained to the wall takes a swing for the severed arm but cannot reach it. The chains squeak as it stretches.

I take a couple of steps back and it feels like he’s run a mile away from me. His one visible eye is glassy with something, and the other one is eclipsed as ever by that wave of hair.

The sink is the only diversion from the situation I can think of; I back towards it. The hinge of the door brushes against the hem of my skirt. In an instant Pierre springs back to life and darts another look at me, a real look, capital-L. That angelic visage of his seems to invent some sharp edges out of nowhere, a warning.

“I’m just getting a drink.” Never mind I don’t have a glass.

“Why are you going to the door?”

“I’m not. I’m just getting a drink, I said.”

He’s trembling. The tap gets stuck when I try and turn it.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Don’t drink?”

I have to wrench at the head of the tap with my hands before it gives, and it turns my palms sore. There’s a minute before the water comes out and when it does it comes out of the tap as a liquid and hits the base of the sink as solid ice. It throws me for a shock and I jump and Pierre jumps worse, yelping and flinging something at my corner of the room. I dodge the thing by about a centimetre but the door, stationary thing it is, does not.

A glistening blue pillar of ice glues it shut.

“Dude.” I have to gather the air back into my lungs before I can speak. “Spells? What the fuck.”

I look back at Pierre and his trembling’s gotten so intense he’s practically vibrating, his outstretched hand faltering from form.

“Don’t go out there. Don’t. I won’t let you.”

“I wasn’t going to leave.” I don’t like taking this tone with him, especially not while his face is still patchy with tears, but I’ve a choice between sadness and anger and I know the former won’t get me out of this one. “Why’d you do that? You scared the ever-loving shit out of me, you know?”

“And I’m sorry,” he says, “but it looked like you were going to leave and I had no choice.”

“You had no choice?” The ice column is freezing to the touch. The skin on my fingers nearly gets stuck. “I dunno. Whatever it is you’re talking about, I feel like there was at least one other choice besides ‘fling a spell at Marianne and try and kill her’.” Cold sweat is breaking out on the back of my neck despite all the ice, and there’s such an awful tight feeling in my stomach that I’m terrified I’m going to be sick again right here and now and the sink’s not even going to work when I need it.

“I wasn’t trying to kill you!” he cries. “That’s- ugh- that’s the exact opposite of what I’m trying to do- don’t you get it?”

“Pierre, just out of curiosity-” my throat starts to hurt- “what the hell do you think happens when you throw a spell like that at someone who can’t defend themselves?” The attack unit flinches. “Just look at what you did to the door!” He flinches. “What the fuck are you trying to do? Trying to finish off what practically everyone at Drysdell’s was trying to start, or what?” I flinch.

It’s an unfair comparison and I know it and he probably knows it too, but I’m scared and there’re tears dropping down my face too and they’re so hot I can’t bear them.

“Oh, god,” he grips the side of his head, “what have I done to the door? That could’ve hurt you, that could’ve seriously hurt you…”

He draws his elbows into himself, muttering, muttering. I try and wrangle all of the steel and the fire from my tone, and just end up with the sadness I was trying to avoid in the first place. A little drop of saltwater hangs onto a strand of lace on my cardigan, like fairy dew. Do I approach? Dare I move?

“Pierre–” these words I practically wrestle out of my throat which feels like sand by now- “please just tell me what’s wrong. I’m not angry at you, I’m just- frightened.”

“I’m so sorry, Marianne,” he murmurs. “I really, really didn’t mean for that- for you to- for the-” he waves a floppy hand at the ice- “it was a stupid thing to do and I shouldn’t have done it, and now I don’t know what to do at all.”

His sobbing resumes full-force and the chains of the attack unit scream in frustration.

“Pierre, can I come closer?” My voice sounds so soft and I’m not used to it being like this.

This is the one thing I’ve said this whole time that strikes a chord with him straight away, and he turns to me with eyes like a child. “Please.”

I close the distance. I ready an arm to put round his shoulder, but I don’t let it settle. “Would it help if I-”

“Yes.”

He retreats hermitlike into the admittedly rather limited locus my arm has to offer. My clothes and flesh muffle his cries but do not stop them. Weary, cold, sore absolutely everywhere, I just let him go at it for a bit. A wet patch starts to grow on my chest and I have a feeling it’ll be conspicuous, but I am past caring.

The attack unit stamps its huge feet and the sound of metal eddies throughout the room. I flip the thing off. It does not react.

At some point Pierre’s able to stop crying, but only because he’s run out of breath. He wheezes into my chest like an asthmatic. I’m not nearly buxom enough to be able to cushion this so his hyperventilations rattle through me, too, feeling as if they were my own. The poor kid. The tail of his fringe is wet from all this and dangles limply over his face; with my free hand, I tuck it behind his ear and the Two-Eyed Pierre trembles in my arms, virtually a little stray dog rescued from disaster.

“Sorry again for yelling at you.” His hair is still incredibly soft when I stroke it. “I have outbursts when I’m scared. Leftover Marion thing, I think.”

He kind of laughs. “No, it isn’t.” He frees a hand that’s been clutching at my waist and indicates the ice wall.

Why am I getting deja-vu from this? “You too, huh?”

“We’re scared of the same things,” he murmurs, “you’re scared for your life, and I’m scared for your life too.”

“Oh, Pierre.” His hair feels even nicer than Molly’s fur. “That’s what this is about?”

“You know, I used to envy you, and maybe even idolise you a little, for what you call ‘outbursts’.” His breath is warming up now. “I worried too much about being a perfect royal guard, the way my father was. I worried that if I expressed myself even a little everyone would reject me.”

“No offence to you or him or anything,” I interject, “but having head of the royal guard be a hereditary position- well, that’s dumb as shit.”

“Precisely.” I’ve managed to wring a sincere laugh out of him. “So, that was the way it was. And then I realised, more recently- a lot of that anger, violence, lashing out, well, maybe some of that was yours, but most of it was probably Marion’s, right? And I knew I definitely wasn’t in love with her. I knew that much.”

“Right.”

“And that just makes this all even worse,” he mutters, “because the real you- that is, the one who likes mushrooms and books and cats, who tries so hard in spite of everything stacked against her- well, I love her so much more.”

“Oh.” Now I feel a bit misty myself.

“It’s bad of me, I know, but I don’t care about being a royal guard anymore. I know it means the safety of all Anachronia now, but- well, what do I care? If I could borrow one of your phrases, Marianne- fuck it. Fuck all of it. What does it matter? This country is a mess. It’s hardly worth carrying on.”

I mean, he’s not wrong, but vocally agreeing with him would depress the hell out of me.

“So naturally, when I can’t seem to protect you from anything at all- when fate pushes you down such a horrible path the minute you regain control of your own self, fraught with tragedy and suffering- well, it makes me feel hopeless. Utterly hopeless.”

“You haven’t really just been beating yourself up purely over me, have you, Pierre?” There’s a weird clunk and a rattling of chains in the background but I choose, dripping with tact, to completely ignore it. “The other thing about filthy non-magical cockroaches like me, see- we’re hard to kill. You really don’t need to worry. You do know that, right?”

“I do,” he smiles, “which is another thing I admire about you, but… well, you know about my mother and father? How they’re, well, no longer here?” I nod.

“Their deaths have hung over me my whole life.” His smile there- gone, like a snowflake you glimpse for a second before it vanishes into the drift. “And I shouldn’t like to see any more of it- death, that is- and obviously when there’s a conspiracy like this Gawain thing going on my wishes mean nothing, but you? When you were there for me right at the beginning with your kindness and your energy? I could never forgive myself, if something happened.”

Now is the wrong time to tell him about Professor Lovejoy.

Pierre’s other eye is a completely normal, run-of-the-mill eye. It’s not blind or a different colour or marked with strange sigils like how people used to speculate. All it is is the missing part to a face that’s fallen halfway into shadow for so long.

“The twilight-dwelling melanistic pondbeast,” I start to think out loud, “if the water it dwells in gets contaminated, will turn neurotic trying to cleanse it. Of course, they’re quite solitary as a species, so there’s not much only one of them can do against greater environmental pollution. And that just makes it worse. Pondbeast fans- this isn’t substantiated by science, mind- say they drive themselves to horrible agony, blaming themselves for what’s become of their home.”

He looks up at me, blinking.

“Of course, the twilight-dwelling melanistic pondbeast is also rumoured to expel its organs through its anus as a last-ditch defence mechanism, and it’s also known to get high off of chewing certain types of poisonous algae, so it’s not a perfect metaphor.” His eyebrow quirks. “Sorry. I forget you didn’t take familial studies at Drysdell’s, sometimes.”

“One of my worst subjects.”

“Really? Oh, well.” I can’t imagine him being bad at anything, especially not a subject as interesting as familial studies, but I save this remark for a more casual conversation. “Anyway, if I can’t compare you to a twilight-dwelling melanistic pondbeast, it means you’re human. You’re allowed to think human thoughts, do human things. You don’t have to be anyone’s knight in shining armour. Nobody does.”

His expression softens and it looks like he’s about to say something, but he’s interrupted by this horrible metallic shriek.

The attack unit has managed to tear both of its shackles from the wall, leaving faults like bullet-holes in the brickwork. It gives its chains a swing for good measure, and the links cackle amongst one another.

It stomps a foot. Its eyeless face points straight at us. It stomps its other foot and its arms seize up in preparation to swing.

Time seems to slow down as it charges, the sound of its joints scraping together amplified tenfold as it makes its move on us- and it’s such a horrible, horrible sound. Like a devil’s claws on chalkboard, only the chalkboard is the inside of my head, and it scrapes away at the thought I had forming.

Somewhere along the line my fight-or-flight reaction forgets its responsibility, and for a split-second I just stare listless into the blank face of potential oblivion.

And I just shout at it.

“Pipe the fuck down, will you? I was talking-”

That’s all I can think about- how I was about to say something good, maybe something that would have brought Pierre out of this spiral entirely, but then got interrupted. It’s silly in retrospect but I’m furious. This pile of scrap, this animate inanimate object with hardly any proper sentience, isn’t just content to make annoying noises, it wants to cut me off, too. My irritation is going from mental to physical; every single hair on my arms and legs is standing up straight like needles. My hands are cramping.

“-you soulless, rusty piece of _shit_ -”

My vision goes cloudy- as in literally clouds fold over my eyes for a split second, and there’s a loud crash that devastates the room and a nigh-blinding flash of light that forks its way through the clouds like veins.

When I regain my eyesight the attack drone is an abstract sculpture of smelted metal and its closest surroundings are charred black. The arm has stopped punching itself.

My fingertips smart horribly, like each one is wearing a thimble mined out of the pits of hell. If I squint I can almost see a thin curve of white smoke whistling from underneath the nail on my right middle finger.

It takes Pierre a solid minute to regain movement of his face, and when he does he lets his jaw fall slightly.

“Hey, if we want to talk angry outbursts,” I pipe up, my voice cracking, “how was that, eh?”

The air is cleared, emptied, and so are our mouths. To fill the silence, I point at the remains of the attack unit and exclaim “get fucked”, but it doesn’t help. I reach for the back of my head and find the static has made a wasp’s nest out of my hair.

“How exactly did you do that, Marianne?”

“Well, I got mad that the thingy interrupted me when I had this really good idea of a thing to say next,” I explain, “like, a really good thing that would’ve totally put your sadness to an end, right? And then I cussed it out and hit it with a bolt of lightning I materialised out of pure petty frustration.”

“I suppose Marion’s not holding you back anymore,” he sighs, “so you can do things like that.”

“I think those rainclouds earlier were me, too.” Rain, clouds, lightning. Having a little control over my environment is nice when all my life it’s been my environment controlling me.

“Is it magic?” he asks. “Is it… the other thing? Like what Felina said?”

“Good question.” Magic wouldn’t surprise me. Magic likes to be smart, to have a hidden meaning like books do.

_“It could be either. It could be both.”_

“She says it could be either of them, or both.”

_“I managed to sense a small spike in psychic energy, so perhaps that was what fuelled it. Your mental breakthrough may have fuelled what magic you have.”_

“There was a small spike in psychic energy she sensed, and maybe my mental breakthrough might’ve fuelled the magic I have.”

_“Of course, it is only a theory.”_

“But it’s just a theory.”

_“The synergy I have with you is getting stronger yet. Your mind and soul are overcoming their previous inhibitions. Maybe- perhaps maybe-”_

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe what?” Pierre cocks his head.

“Oh, sorry. Said it aloud when I didn’t mean to again.”

_“If you could try and focus your energy on other souls, maybe- you could do something.”_

I’m about to ask her what something I can do but I think I know what she’s hinting at.

_“If you do try to help- and may I remind you that you are under no obligation- then as soon as possible would be best. I do not know how much time is left- for me, or for you.”_

Do something. Save something. Me, save something. _‘Save the world’_ is a cliché I learned to roll my eyes at in adventure books growing up. Would I be doing that, if I did what Felina suggested and helped?

Pierre is looking at me, eyes expectant. We’ve both got blue eyes, blue clothes, dead parents, dead hopes. Perhaps Professor Lovejoy wound back time once and we grew up the exact same person. Of course, the bad things still would’ve happened.

Felina’s suggestion- I’m another cliché, a _‘last hope’_. Professor Lovejoy gave up and the stopwatch is still hiding in my shoe but I couldn’t, I couldn’t possibly. This run is the last.

The tears on his face are drying. In an ideal world they never would’ve been there. Emily-Rose would’ve never been annexed for her safety and she wouldn’t have had to drag an innocent boy down with her. We would be at Drysdell’s, reading books, swapping glances, and Professor Lovejoy would really be the age she says she is. But of course, we don’t live in that world. We’re in a different one.

I wonder how many Mariannes got their magic back like I have. I’ve got no way of checking, but a feeling in my chest is telling me, _not many_. I only got mine back through some painful, hallucinatory fumble I can’t remember. A contrivance at best.

“Hey, Pierre.” Time to start my pitch. “What say you we make the most of our time here, you know?”

“What are you suggesting?” He watches me, wary.

“While we’re down this hole, we could do something useful,” I say. “I mean, neither of us are cut out to be miracle-workers, but, like, we could probably do something.”

“Like what?”

“Save some people. I don’t know.” I’m watching him back now, trying to brainstorm. His streaked eyelids glimmer faintly like a moonlit lake. “Even with what we have, most likely we’re powerless against the grand scheme of things. Gawain’s got murderers, a maze, and thousands of those… big things.”

“Right. There’s little point in trying to fight directly.” He’s onto me now.

“Yeah. We’ll just meet the same fate as everyone else, so…” I’m about to say something incredibly corny and it’s embarrassing, but there’s no other way I can think to phrase it. “Only thing we can do, against violence and cruelty like that- create a little good in the world, get a few lives back to normal. Like Felina’s. I want to save Felina, at least. Not everyone at Drysdell’s was totally awful.”

“You’re saying you’re going to try to reverse death, Marianne?”

“It’s not a death technically, she told me-”

“Well, if you succeeded, even if it was only for one person-” he shifts, hopping slightly on his left leg- “that would be incredible. Revolutionary.”

“Yeah.” I can finally bring myself to smile, to really smile. “That’s the plan. Then we get the fuck out of here.” I breathe in, brush a few wrinkles out of my skirt. “After that- I think we’re both overdue for one hell of a lot of therapy.”

“Therapy,” he echoes, and half-laughs. “Such a simple idea- and yet...”

“We can go together,” I say, “book appointments, get the transport. Then something nice afterwards, like ice cream or table tennis.”

“Stargazing.” He says it with certainty, placing his hand on the table.

“Stargazing. You’d like that, huh?”

“Very much.”

I can faintly recall seeing him in the astronomy towers at Drysdell’s more recently, arms full of diagrams and maps and books. It’s probably no wonder someone so beautiful but so subdued, so constantly hidden, feels at home among the moon and the stars. The sun is still my favourite star, though, despite all my burns; I’ve learned to love it when it’s dappled on the forest floor and a golden rectangle of warmth through the library window.

Being down here in this indifferent mechanical place makes me miss it. Felina’s right. If I do something it has to be soon.


End file.
